The first letter I wrote to the nice folks at the CIA ...

OK. So like I said I was emboldened by the success with getting the FBI to speak at my library so I made it my life dream to get the CIA to come and talk. This was the first letter I wrote to the agency. I don't care if you come and knock on my door at 1540 Logan St. in central Denver, but I can't very well tell you at what library I work. Sorry. They have to approve of stuff you write. You just can't connect your name with the library district without running stuff past the PR office. So for obvious reasons I had to remove the name of my library and library district. Anyway! So this letter I thought was downright friendly. Since I didn't get any response, the second one wasn't quite so sweet. Look for me to post that one next -- soon, too. Love from your fan club prez, Jeanie
P.S. That's me hanging at a commie monument in Romania.

14 November 2007

Central Intelligence Agency
Office of Public Affairs
Public Communications Branch
Washington, D.C. 20505

Dear OPA Public Communications Branch official:

I am writing to inquire about the possibility of scheduling a Denver-based speaker from the Central Intelligence Agency for patrons of ANY CITY Library, a branch of the publicly-funded XYZ Libraries system in Colorado.

We will have the privilege of playing host to FBI Denver Division Special Agent THIS WAS THE NICE DUDE I MENTIONED, who will be speaking on the storied FBI's Civil Rights program on Dec. 12 at ANY CITY Library, and would be similarly honored to schedule a speaker from the CIA.

I know that the CIA considers the American public its primary customers, and that the public's thirst for knowledge about the agency is apparent from the immense volume of letters, phone calls, e-mails and faxes that the agency receives on an annual basis. How wonderful that as part of outreach efforts you provide talks to a variety of groups, including other government agencies.

I have eagerly followed media coverage on the CIA's expansion of its domestic presence by placing agents with most of the FBI's 56 terrorism task forces in U.S. cities, and on the possibility that the CIA would move its National Resources Division to the Federal Center in Lakewood, Colorado.

ANY CITY residents are well educated and well versed in world and national affairs. They would be interested in attending a talk on any intelligence issue. Open dates include Jan. 30, Feb. 27, March 26 and April 30. My paperwork deadline, for poster design and PR, is the 10th of the previous month.

I can be reached at 303-ANY-CITY-LIBRARY or by email at js@ANYCITYLIBRARY.

Thank you very much for your serious consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

Jeanie

Discussion of relative merits of NSA -- and NSA operations in Denver -- coupled with creepy picture of terrorist from Munich Olympics ...

Yes. That is a totally creepy picture. But I have been meaning to use it just 4-ever. Anyway. First thing is first: Correction on the Federal Center. You can say metro Denver or Lakewood. But I think at one point I said Golden. Totally wrong. Could not be more wrong than Golden. It is metro Denver or Lakewood. OK. So we're moving on to the NSA. Not nearly as sexy. That's why they get the Munich picture. Because they need something to make them creepier. All they do is vacuum up petrabytes sp? of data. They figure out how to do the data-matching / data-mining, etc. They figure out how to vacuum up the data. Someone else kicks down the doors in this world. It ain't the friendly folks at the NSA. If it were up to the NSA, everyone who purchased hummus on their AmEx last week would have their door kicked in. Totally kidding! Please don't vacuum up my phone calls to Iran! I mean to New Jersey! I totally misspoke there! I swear I never call Iran!

Here is the NSA story. I love those NSA people. They are so sexy! They are the ones who really get things done in this world! We love you NSA! Please do not hurt us!

NSA moving some workers, operations to Denver area
Intelligence service being secretive about who, where and when; post-9/11 decentralization among factors
An author of books on the agency says Denver is a sensible choice because of other operations here

The Denver Post
January 24, 2006

Author: Mike Soraghan and Aldo Svaldi
Denver Post Staff Writers

Washington -- The National Security Agency, the country's largest and most secretive intelligence service, says it is moving some operations to the Denver area.

The NSA, which monitors communications around the world for the United States intelligence community, confirmed the move in a statement to The Denver Post but did not say how many people would be coming to Denver, when they would arrive or where in the Denver area they would be based.

"The move of some operations into Denver is a result of NSA's decentralization of expertise from Fort Meade. This strategy better aligns support to national decision makers and combatant commanders," the agency said in a statement attributed to NSA spokesman Don Weber.

Fort Meade is the NSA's heavily guarded headquarters in Maryland, just north of Washington.

In the past year, the NSA decided to move roughly 300 staff members to a satellite operation at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora known as the Aerospace Data Facility, said James Bamford, author of two books on the NSA, "The Puzzle Palace" and "Body of Secrets." He didn't know if that move had been implemented yet or whether it was the same move confirmed to The Post by the NSA.

Local economic development officials have been told the NSA is coming but say they don't know where or how many people are involved, said Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp., a regional economic development group.

Clark called the Denver Federal Center in Lakewood a potential location, but Lakewood officials said they are working closely with General Services Administration officials on development of the federal site at West Sixth Avenue and Kipling Street and have heard nothing of intelligence agencies.

Only 7 percent of the NSA's workforce, estimated at somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000, now works outside the Washington area. According to press accounts, the agency wants to expand outside of Washington, basing 20 percent of its staff elsewhere by 2011.

"It worried people after 9/11 how vulnerable they were" at Fort Meade, Bamford said.

In recent years, the NSA has moved some operations to Fort Gordon, Ga., and San Antonio. At San Antonio, the NSA is expected to add 3,000 new employees and spend tens of millions on construction, the San Antonio Express-News has reported.

Bamford noted that Denver makes sense because it's close to North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado Springs, the spy satellite operations at Buckley and satellite contractors in the Denver suburbs.
It was disclosed last year that the CIA plans to move its domestic operations division to the Denver Federal Center.

Who is looking out for you? I'm saying! Love from your fan club prez, Jeanie

Nice CIA folks in the field offices of those nice FBI folks ...

OK. So this is the one I mentioned about the CIA having a CIA person camped out at each of the 56 field offices of the FBI. I've only chatted with one FBI person my entire life and he was quite cool -- he was the dude who came to speak at my library. Mind you he was also the guy who wouldn't come to talk about what I wanted him to talk about. He would only come to talk about what the FBI wanted to talk about. All the same, he came to my little library and he was quite nice. I would want him to bust in if I were locked in someone's basement. I can't say that I would want anyone from the CIA to show up. I might be better off locked in that basement, depending on what the CIA had planned. Like would they fly me away in a secret plane and keep me arrested for six years without charging me? Would I languish in prison and go insane from being waterboarded etcetera? Anyway! Here is the story that you may have missed. Oh, and the reason I mentioned the FBI guy who I mentioned above -- the guy who is the reason why I always (sort of) give the FBI a break (yes, the guy who came to my library kind of makes me love the FBI more often than not, although his new boss has not responded to my nice letter of welcome) was because I asked him if he could get the CIA person in his office to come speak at the library and he looked at me like he thought I was on crack. I still am going to hit him up one of these days to ask the CIA person in his office to come and speak. Because that other CIA person in the beltway who called me finally after my second letter was totally unhelpful and I am on a mission to get a CIA person to cross the threshold into a public library for a purpose other than narcing out a patron of Middle Eastern descent. (Look for me to post that CIA woman's direct line again here very soon.) Anyway! Here is the story:

CIA Ramps Up Presence at FBI Offices

By John J. Lumpkin
Associated Press
23 October 2002

WASHINGTON -- The CIA is increasing its presence at FBI field offices by assigning intelligence officers to domestic anti-terrorism teams, officials said Wednesday.

The goal is to have at least one CIA officer at each of the 56 FBI field offices in the United States, a U.S. intelligence official said. The officers are being drawn from both the agency's analytical and operational branches.

They serve as conduits of information, providing the FBI and local police distilled intelligence that the CIA and other services have collected overseas, officials said. At the same time, information gathered by local law enforcement on potential terrorist activities is sent to CIA headquarters.

"This increased cooperation is crucial in the fight against terrorism, and the role of the agency is to provide intelligence information to law enforcement authorities," said CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield.

The practice, which started on a small scale before Sept. 11, follows an FBI effort to station more of its agents on CIA territory: overseas. For several years, the FBI has assigning agents as legal attaches to U.S. embassies, the traditional home of clandestine CIA officers.

The CIA officers at the FBI field offices will not be employed in the field, officials said. As a foreign intelligence agency, the CIA has been severely restricted in what it can do inside the United States since the mid-1970s, when Congress enacted reforms to prevent the agency from spying on Americans.

The expanded CIA domestic counterterrorism effort is separate from a second, more secretive CIA operation in several U.S. cities. At these, intelligence officers interview American businessmen and scholars returning from overseas and try to recruit sources among foreigners who are returning to their home countries.

One such CIA office was at the World Trade Center when it was destroyed by terrorists during the Sept. 11 attacks, but no agency personnel were killed. The CIA is also believed to be expanding its operations at several of these domestic offices. The CIA and FBI came under fire for not cooperating on terrorism matters, particularly before the attacks. Since Sept. 11, some critics have called for a new emphasis on domestic intelligence-gathering, using a system similar to that employed by the British intelligence services. Others, however, fear a domestic spying effort will ultimately erode Americans' civil liberties. In recent congressional hearings on the Sept. 11 attacks, the directors of the FBI and CIA both said their agencies have improved cooperation.

"We are also working to extend the good cooperation we have built between our chiefs of station and legal attaches overseas to a system of cooperation between CIA and FBI field offices in the United States," CIA Director George J. Tenet said.

The agencies also share counterterrorism officers between their respective headquarters.

Finally she gets back to waving to the nice folks at the CIA ..

I love this picture. It is totally real art from the War Office. It is so totally relevant today. (But not relevant to the following post on the nice folks at the CIA and how we should wave at them.) Anyway. I'm getting back to the CIA question. (Note this sentence from the below story, even if the nice CIA folks aren't at the Federal Center here: "Colorado has become a major intelligence hub since Sept. 11, 2001.") I am hoping to post the rest of the stories and then my nice letters to the nice CIA folks. And then one NSA story and a couple about the relationship between the CIA and the FBI, including the one reporting that there is a CIA person in every FBI field office. There are, like, about 56 field offices. Anyway! Here is the Wash Post story that I think may have started it all. So you've got to work backwards at this point, but there are like three stories from The Denver Post and one from the RMN, which kind of fell down on this story. And then this one from the Wash Post. Am I being repetitive? It has been a long day!

CIA Plans to Shift Work to Denver
Domestic Division Would Be Moved

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 6, 2005; A21

The CIA has plans to relocate the headquarters of its domestic division, which is responsible for operations and recruitment in the United States, from the CIA's Langley headquarters to Denver, a move designed to promote innovation, according to U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials.

About $20 million has been tentatively budgeted to relocate employees of the CIA's National Resources Division, officials said. A U.S. intelligence official said the planned move, confirmed by three other government officials, was being undertaken "for operational reasons."

A CIA spokesman declined to comment. Other current and former intelligence officials said the Denver relocation reflects the desire of CIA Director Porter J. Goss to develop new ways to operate under cover, including setting up more front corporations and working closer with established international firms.

Associates of Goss said yesterday that the move was also in keeping with his desire to stop the growth of CIA headquarters and headquarters-based group-think, something he criticized frequently when he was chairman of the House intelligence committee.

Other CIA veterans said such a relocation would make no sense, given Denver's relative distance from major corporate centers. "Why would you go so far away?" one asked. "They will get disconnected."

The main function of the domestic division, which has stations in many major U.S. cities, is to conduct voluntary debriefings of U.S. citizens who travel overseas for work or to visit relatives, and to recruit foreign students, diplomats and businesspeople to become CIA assets when they return to their countries. It was unclear how many CIA employees would relocate to Denver under the plan.

Although collecting information on U.S. citizens under suspicion for terrorist links is primarily an FBI function, the CIA may also collect information on citizens under limited circumstances, according to a 1981 executive order. The exact guidelines for those operations are spelled out in a classified document signed by the CIA director and approved by the attorney general.

The Denver move, which is tentatively scheduled for next year but has not been finalized, coincides with several other developments related to the CIA's domestic intelligence work.

Last week, the CIA and FBI agreed to a new "memorandum of understanding" on domestic and foreign operations, the first change in decades. The negotiations surrounding the memo were highly contentious, with the FBI saying that it should control and approve the CIA's domestic activities, including its pool of U.S.-based assets that have been invaluable in the past to understanding the intentions of foreign nations and groups.

But the FBI is having significant problems developing its own domestic intelligence branch and the CIA is generally viewed across the intelligence community as more experienced and skilled at handling foreign informants who eventually return abroad, where the CIA has the lead in intelligence gathering and operations.

Both the CIA and FBI are trying to deepen their outreach to U.S. research and academic institutions and to private subcontractors working on major government contracts abroad.

Originally, the FBI also pressed to have the bureau disseminate all intelligence reports from sources -- foreigners or U.S. citizens -- living in the United States. It was undercut, however, by the fact that the bureau routinely falls behind in issuing counterterrorism reports and, at the time of the most heated negotiations, in December, the FBI had a backlog of more than 100 reports it had not distributed.

In response to questions this week about the new agreement, the FBI and CIA issued a joint statement to The Washington Post. "The FBI and CIA are committed to effective, joint operations to safeguard our nation," it says. "To that end, we are completing work on a memorandum of understanding that will codify our joint operating principals. We are pleased with both the process and the outcome and we recognize that our joint efforts will enhance national security."

Under the agreement, the CIA must coordinate its operations with the FBI. The CIA's domestic division has agreed to provide the FBI with more information about its operations and debriefings. One goal of updating the memo was to ensure that the two agencies were not working at cross purposes and were aware if one or the other had already recruited or debriefed someone.

It is unclear how a move to Denver would increase the effectiveness of the domestic division's operations, said several former intelligence officials.

Colorado has become a major intelligence hub since Sept. 11, 2001.

The Denver suburb of Aurora is home to the little-known Aerospace Data Facility. Located inside Buckley Air Force Base, it has become the major U.S.-based technical downlink for intelligence satellites operated by the military, the National Security Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office, according to military and government documents obtained by William Arkin, author of "Code Names," a book about secret military plans and programs.

About 70 miles away, the U.S. Northern Command, based at Peterson Air Force Base, in Colorado Springs, is tasked with homeland defense and has been increasing its domestic intelligence work.

It could not be learned whether the CIA's Denver plans are linked to the presence of either facility.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

As always, love from your fan club prez, Jeanie

Those are German soldiers as POWs in Paris ...

Another great photo by the fabulous photographer whose name escapes me. (I promise to find out.) Here is another great story. Who is looking out for you? I'm saying!

U.S. to Expand DNA Collection During Arrests, Detentions

By Ellen Nakashima and Spencer Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 16, 2008; 6:42 PM

The U.S. government will soon begin collecting DNA samples from all citizens arrested for any federal crime and many illegal immigrants detained by federal authorities, adding genetic identifiers from more than a million individuals a year to the swiftly growing federal law enforcement DNA database.

The new policy would substantially expand the current practice of routinely collecting DNA samples only from those convicted of federal crimes, although it would build on a growing policy of states to collect DNA from all those arrested. Thirteen states do so now, and turn their data over to the federal government.

The initiative, to be published as a proposed rule in the Federal Register in coming days, reflects a congressional directive that DNA from arrestees should be collected to help catch a range of domestic criminals. But it also requires collection for the first time of DNA samples from foreigners detained by U.S. authorities.

Although fingerprints have long been collected for virtually every arrestee, privacy advocates say that the move expands the DNA database beyond its initial aim of storing information on the perpetrators of violent crimes.

They also worry that people could be detained erroneously and swept into the DNA database without cause, and that DNA samples from those who are never convicted of any crime -- due to acquittals or a withdrawal of charges -- might nonetheless be permanently retained by the FBI.

"Innocent people don't belong in a so-called criminal database," said Tania Simoncelli, ACLU science adviser. "We're crossing a line." She said that if the samples are kept, they could one day be analyzed for such sensitive information such as diseases and ancestry.

Immigration rights advocates also note that most illegal immigrants are detained for administrative violations, not federal crimes. By adding their DNA to the database, "it casts them all as criminals," said Paromita Shah, associate director of the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild.

The database expansion was authorized by Congress as an amendment to the Violence Against Women Act of 2006, and billed primarily as a way to track down offenders. "We know for a fact that the proposed regulations will save the lives of many innocent people and will prevent devastating crimes," said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), a sponsor of the legislation. "These regulations are long overdue -- we should have done this 10 years ago."

Government officials say that FBI rules preclude using DNA samples to determine a person's genetic traits, diseases or disorders. "The collection of DNA samples . . . will provide an additional form of biometric identification from persons who would normally be fingerprinted," said Erik Ablin, a spokesman for the Department of Justice.

The proposed rule applies to all federal agencies with authority to arrest or detain, from the FBI to The Border Patrol to the IRS. Although details of the new policy have not been announced, officials said they expected the bulk of the new samples to be collected through cheek swabs.

U.S. officials said that when the measure is fully implemented, roughly 1.2 million people a year could be added to the national database. About 140,000 of those would be people arrested for federal crimes. Many of the rest would be illegal immigrants detained in the United States.

The rule's scope is still being negotiated, officials said. But it would not cover illegal immigrants picked up at sea, people being processed for legal admission to the United States, such as asylum seekers, and people undergoing secondary screening at ports of entry. It was unclear today whether Mexican border crossers who are briefly detained and then released in Mexico would be covered. The Border Patrol made 877,000 apprehensions in 2007, most of them of Mexicans.

The move comes as 13 states -- including Virginia, and recently, Maryland -- have passed laws to enlarge their databanks to include arrestees. California, which has more than 1 million profiles, will begin next year collecting DNA data from all arrestees. These are uploaded to the national database, which today houses more than 5.8 million samples, making it the largest forensic DNA databank in the world.

The National DNA Index System or NDIS was created by the DNA Identification Act of 1994, to store profiles only for those people convicted of serious violent crimes, such as rape and murder. A 2004 amendment expanded the collection to persons convicted of any felony offense, and allowed states to upload DNA profiles from people convicted of misdemeanors and arrestees charged with a crime. In 2006, the law was changed again, enabling states to upload arrestees who had not been charged.

Over the years, NDIS has yielded 65,000 hits in 65,350 investigations, FBI officials said. "I think by any measure, the program has been a success," said Thomas Callaghan, head of the FBI's national DNA database, and the best way to increase its effectiveness is to add DNA samples from arrestees.

Jay Ann Sepich of Carlsbad, N.M., said she applauds the federal legislation. In August 2003, when Sepich's 22-year-old daughter Katie was raped and killed, investigators found her attacker's skin and blood under her fingernails. But no one in the state's database matched the crime scene evidence.

In 2006, moved by Katie's death, the New Mexico legislature passed "Katie's Law," requiring the collection of arrestees' DNA and in December 2006, authorities arrested the man who had killed her daughter. He had been arrested for aggravated burglary. Sepich is now a prominent lobbyist for similar laws in other states.

In Virginia, which adopted one of the first arrestee laws in 2003, about 51 percent of arrestee profiles are eventually removed from the state database because charges are dropped or a case is dismissed, said Pete Marone, the director of the state's department of forensic science. It is the forensic lab's duty to remove the profiles, which can take a year or two, he said. "As long as the case is in process, they're still there," he said.

Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, warned of mission creep. "The natural path is to move from the dangerous criminals down the chain, to anybody who has contact with law enforcement, and after that, you'll have DNA taken when people are born or first enter the country legally."

The proposed rule will be subject to a 30-day public comment period, Ablin said.

That's a couple riding the train in Romania in 1975 ...

... and has nothing to do with this post. I just love the photographer, whose is totally famous but whose name escapes me. I will have to get back to you on that. Tonight is more FBI stuff. I promise to get back to being mean to the CIA very soon. Love from your fan club prez, Jeanie
BTW This is from a great blog called Threat Level that is on the Wired blog network. (I love the category they put this story in!)

See: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/fbi-director-ci.html

FBI Caused Delay in Terror Case Ahead of Senate Testimony

By Ryan Singel
April 15, 2008
PM Categories: Spooks Gone Wild

Counterterrorism officials in FBI headquarters slowed an investigation into a possible conspirator in the 2005 London bombings by forcing a field agent to return documents acquired from a U.S. university. Why? Because the agent received the documents through a lawful subpoena, while headquarters wanted him to demand the records under the USA Patriot Act, using a power the FBI did not have, but desperately wanted.

When a North Carolina State University lawyer correctly rejected the second records demand, the FBI obtained another subpoena. Two weeks later, the delay was cited by FBI director Robert Mueller in congressional testimony as proof that the USA Patriot Act needed to be expanded.

The strange episode is recounted in newly declassified documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents shed new light on how senior FBI officials' determination to gain independence from judicial oversight slowed its own investigation, and led the bureau's director to offer inaccurate testimony to Congress. The revelations are likely to play a key role in Capitol Hill hearings Tuesday and Wednesday on the FBI's use of so-called national security letters, or NSLs.

At issue is the FBI's probe of a former chemistry graduate student at North Carolina State University who was then suspected aiding the deadly attack. The student has since been cleared of any involvement.

The agent investigating the student in the Charlotte, North Carolina field office obtained a grand jury subpoena demanding some university records on the student. But he was then advised by superiors in Washington DC to return the papers and draft an NSL demanding the documents instead.

Under the USA Patriot Act, FBI counterterrorism investigators can self-issue such letters to get phone records, portions of credit reports and bank records, simply by certifying that the records are relevant to an investigation. Unlike subpoenas, NSLs do not require probable cause, and at the time obliged the recipient to not discuss the demand with anyone, ever. In contrast, gag orders attached to grand jury subpoenas have expiration dates.

FBI agents have relied heavily on the power, issuing more than 100,000 NSLs in 2004 and 2005 combined. The first audit of the FBI's use of the power found the agents became sloppy in their use of the power and one HQ office went rogue and issued hundreds of fake emergency requests for phone records.

The problem in the bombing case: the NSL demanded the university's health records on the student. Even under the USA Patriot Act, which greatly expanded the NSL's reach, university records and health records are exempt, making the order from headquarters a sure-fire path to delay.

The FBI even has sample letters for each of the 11 kinds of records NSL can be used to obtain. To comply with the demand from Washington, the Charlotte agent had to modify a sample letter intended for internet records.

The university, which had readily turned over the records in response to a subpoena, rejected the illegal NSL. Two weeks later, Mueller, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, portrayed the university as intransigent and said the incident showed the FBI needed the power to force the turnover of all sorts of records without having to involve the court system.

"Now in my mind, we should not, in that circumstance have to show somebody that this was an emergency," Mueller testified on July 27, 2005. "We should've been able to have a document, an administrative subpoena that we took to the university and got those records immediately."

Some of the declassified documents suggest that Mueller was himself misled by underlings, and wasn't told that the records had already been turned over in response to a subpoena.

Additionally, no one reported the overreaching subpoena to the Intelligence Oversight Board until 2007, when the Inspector General started asking questions. Oversight rules require officials to report any possible violations within 14 days.

This week, the House and Senate Judiciary committees are holding new hearings on NSLs. Over the past two years, the Justice Department's Inspector General has issued two damning reports on the agency's sloppiness in using the letters. Additionally, several courts have struck down some aspects of the NSLs as unconstitutional, and reports have surfaced that intelligence and military units are using them for domestic investigations.

Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-New York) has introduced legislation to rein in the use of national security letters, and provide penalties for abuses.

UPDATE: FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni responded to questions about the incident from Rep. Nadler in a hearing Tuesday, essentially saying it wasn't a big deal since the FBI was entitled to the records, anyhow:

"I am not quite sure why the direction was give to issue an NSL in that case," Caproni said. "As I look at what I believe they were seeking from the university, an NSL was not the way to go. It's unclear why HQ chose the wrong tool."

That's me after a long night of recruiting informants for the FBI ...

Yes. That's me after a long night of recruiting informants for the FBI. And, no, I'm not done posting stories about the CIA existing outside of the beltway despite what that girl who called me back from their PR department told me after I wrote my second letter asking if a CIA-style person could come to talk at my library. (I'll post those letters, too, because they are great. The first letter was nice and all and then I got kind of bitchy and told them they should send someone to address the whole torture deal. You know.) Anyway! So expect the stories about the CIA in Denver -- Don't forget to wave to the nice people at the CIA when you pass the Federal Center in Golden! -- and then my increasingly bitchy letters to the public affairs office. All sorts of great stuff coming your way! But first an update on that always upright agency, the FBI. Truly I do love the FBI because an FBI-style guy did come to talk at my library. Not about what I wanted him to talk about, which was post-9/11 civil rights issues -- as in the FBI addressing those issues -- but, you know. He came to my library and my friend Jack from library school thought I was all cool for getting the FBI in the building at all. Anyway! I'm also going to talk about this great investigation of nuclear sites on college campuses done by this national news agency that is near and dear to my heart. Biometrics. All sorts of stuff! Look for it all here! You may have not read it here first, you may have even read it last year! But you did see pictures of Beyonce and Jay-Z here intermingled with discussions of whether Will Smith would have had sex after three years without human contact -- and this cute little woman shows up! (Put the kid to bed! Go to bed!) Love and much burning of extra TVs from your fan club prez, Jeanie

FBI says problems with letters fixed

By LAURIE KELLMAN
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The FBI is resisting legislation that would put more restrictions on domestic surveillance of Americans' private records, saying the agency already has tightened its rules to crack down on wrongful use of national security letters.

FBI general counsel Valerie E. Caproni told a House panel Tuesday that the agency has responded to abuses outlined in internal reports by tightening the requirements for issuing national security letters.

National security letters, or NSLs, are investigative tools used to compel businesses to turn over customer information without a judge's order or grand jury subpoena.

She said the agency has improved training programs on the use of NSLs and limited information that can be gathered from third parties — like phone companies and banks.

"In light of the FBI's tremendous progress in this regard, further legislative changes, including the measures envisioned by (Congress), would be neither necessary nor appropriate," Caproni said in testimony to the House subcommittee on the Constitution.

Majority Democrats and some Republicans in Congress disagree. Lawmakers in the House and Senate are pushing legislation that would limit the FBI's ability to secretly collect reams of information on the bank, telephone, credit card and internet accounts of private Americans involved in terrorism investigations.

One key concern is Caproni's statement that new FBI policies amount to sufficient "checks and balances" against the secret letters violating people's civil liberties.

"Some of us think that 'checks and balances' means that you check with another branch of government," Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., said during the hearing. "All these (Department of Justice) employees are checking and balancing themselves."

Caproni pointed out that Glenn A. Fine, DOJ's inspector general, works for the agency and uncovered significant misuse of NSLs that he documented in two reports beginning last year.

Fine found that the FBI issued improper demands in 2006 for records of 3,860 telephone lines to justify the fact the bureau had obtained the data using an illegal procedure that is now prohibited.

The probe also found that a federal court twice denied the FBI's request for a warrant. The bureau got the same records without a warrant using national security letters.

Fine's first report led to new procedures, according to the FBI and the Justice Department.

For some in Congress, the new rules aren't enough. Subcommittee chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., is sponsoring legislation that would tighten restrictions on how much information should be given to the FBI under an NSL and require that they clearly pertain to a foreign power or a specific agent, rather than the current standard that they be relevant to a terror probe.

The House bill also would create a new rule that FBI agents must destroy information obtained under an NSL for a person who is no longer of interest to the probe.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on the issue April 23.

Meanwhile Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit in New York Tuesday against the FBI seeking the release of records relating to the agency's use of national security letters on behalf of other government agencies, particularly the Department of Defense.

The suit is the latest move by the ACLU to probe whether the military is using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on domestic surveillance. The group bases its allegations on a review of more than 1,000 documents turned over by the Defense Department after it sued the Pentagon and the CIA for the information last year.

Air Force Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder said in an e-mail this month that the Pentagon had made "focused, limited and judicious" use of the letters since Congress extended the capability to investigatory entities other than the FBI in 2001.

The Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks gave new urgency to the government's search for terrorists. The Patriot Act expanded the FBI's authority to use the letters as a tool in this search, prompting immediate protests from civil libertarians who said the new law did not include sufficient safeguards against abuse by the government.

The House bill is H.R. 3189.

Last one for today I PROMISE ...

I promise this is it for today. But, hey, this is not the last story on the CIA being outside the beltway. So look for more from The Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News and The Washington Post posted here in the very near future. (I do like The Washington Post. And the other two sometimes. OK. The other two almost never.) Anyway! The story is from the RMN on 05/07/2005.

Wave to the nice people from the CIA when you pass the Federal Center!

The image is totally unrelated. It is supposed to be totally funny. Think about it. It is from this funny graphing website. Come on, dude. IT IS KILLER FUNNY!

(If you can't read the text of the KILLER FUNNY graph click on the image.)

Here is the RMN story, reprinted with permission:

CIA KEEPS SILENT ON MOVING PLANS PAPER SAYS OFFICE TO RELOCATE TO DENVER

Rocky Mountain News
May 7, 2005

If the CIA plans to move some of its operations to Colorado, it hasn't let state lawmakers in on the secret.

State congressional offices were still in the dark on Friday, after The Washington Post reported that the intelligence agency plans to relocate the headquarters of its National Resources Division to Denver.

Citing unnamed government sources, the newspaper reported that the CIA had tentatively budgeted $20 million to move an undetermined number of employees from the agency's headquarters in Langley, Va., to Denver.

Agency officials declined to comment Friday, and it was unclear whether the story represented a preliminary trial balloon or a concept further along in planning.

"We would certainly welcome the move of the domestic intelligence division or any other part of the CIA to Denver if it fell into the interests of national security," said Josh Freed, a spokesman for Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Denver.

"I think it is in such early stages of consideration that numerous angles need to be looked at and considered before it can be determined how serious this is."

Such a move could affect DeGette's district, but neither she nor Colorado's two U.S. Senate offices had been briefed as of Friday.

Transferring the sensitive CIA operations would require extensive consultation with the Senate and House of Representatives' intelligence committees, which do not have any Colorado members. Committee representatives declined comment Friday.

Part of the National Resources Division's mission is to recruit foreign citizens in the United States to work with the CIA and provide intelligence once they return home. It also tries to glean information from Americans returning from overseas trips.

Sources told The Washington Post that the move is consistent with new CIA Director Porter Goss' hopes of ending "group-think" by limiting growth at the CIA's sprawling Virginia headquarters. Other officials reportedly questioned whether Colorado-based agents could get "disconnected." The state already has a prominent military presence, with a busy Army base at Fort Carson, Air Force bases and missile defense facilities in and around Colorado Springs, and sensitive facilities at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora that download data from intelligence-gathering satellites.

BTW there are a lot more "Wave to the Nice People at the CIA" stories ...

Hi again. I realize I dropped the ball on posting all the yes-Virginia the-CIA-does-exist outside-the-beltway stories that ran in The Denver Post etcetera. I know that at this point these are kind of out of order, date-wise, and that I am a librarian and should get these things right. Hmm. Oh well! Get over it. (I am providing a nice image for you.) This is an editorial from 05/11/2005. The upshot of the editorial: "CIA would provide an important service to the country and be a good addition to metro Denver." Um. Yes. I hear you. That's why I'm posting the way fabulous picture of Beyonce and Jay-Z on the move. Because they are so very fabulous and wonderful and beautiful! You go, Beyonce and Jay-Z! We love you!

EDITORIAL -- CIA unit could benefit Denver

The Denver Post
May 11, 2005

The CIA, whose work typically has been shrouded in secrecy since its creation in the 1940s, is considering moving its domestic operations division from northern Virginia to the Denver area. The National Resources Division is responsible for operations and recruitment in the United States.

It's an important mission, but not the cloak-and-dagger stuff that makes the agency so controversial overseas, and Denver appears ready to embrace the CIA's possible expansion into the area with open arms.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, it was clear the CIA failed to successfully recruit agents with the right interests and skills, so the recruiting mission is vitally important to the country's anti-terrorism efforts.

About $20 million has been budgeted for the move, according to sources.

From Colorado's congressional delegation to Denver's mayor to business leaders, the move shapes up as a positive addition to the Denver economic landscape.

"Anytime there's a possibility of new jobs, especially high-paying ones, that's something to get excited about," said Lindy Eichenbaum Lent, spokeswoman for Mayor John Hickenlooper. "But given we have no details and no confirmation, it's impossible to say much more."

No one this side of Langley, Va., seems to have any details, and CIA leadership isn't talking. The CIA unit could involve anywhere from a few hundred jobs to more than a thousand, and could land in Lakewood at the Denver Federal Center, or in a non-descript office building elsewhere.

The move is consistent with the Bush administration's desire to shake up the agency's "beltway mentality" and expand recruiting beyond the east and west coasts. It would help decentralize federal security capabilities away from the vulnerable corridors of power concentrated in Washington.

Denver already is well-connected into the intelligence community - more so than most people will ever know. Besides many military links, a growing number of private businesses with government contracts are working here on intelligence and security issues. Their work is secret, but the government contracts have been a boon, said Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp.

More than 300 companies in Colorado are associated with the space industry, including satellite-related technology and defense, he said.

Not all of the chatter around the possible move has been positive. Some skeptics worry this could make Colorado more of a target for terrorists. Others wonder if the CIA might be tempted to overreach its statutory restrictions on spying if it moves further away from congressional oversight.

It's fun and easy to conjure up some conspiratorial conclusions about the agency's intent, but at first glance it seems this particular function of the CIA would provide an important service to the country and be a good addition to metro Denver.

woo-hoo librarians you go ...

I'm going to start with some nice things -- not that the librarian story isn't nice. It is totally positive. You will be dancing down the street. I just want to mention three things that I totally love not related to these kind of stories or to people who write hard-copy letters to government officials about things like, you know: Please do not attend the Olympics!

Here are the three things:

01 People who drive fast. You go brother! God gave you that car for a reason. You are driving fast for all of us!

02 Beyonce and Jay-Z. I LOVE THEM. They are a nice looking couple. They should get more press. I think they look sweet sitting together at this game. (See above.) They never look unhappy.

03 I'll think of something else and get back to you. Oh, OK. I liked the movie I saw this weekend: "I Am Legend." Will Smith was good. Although I thought, you know, that if two adults had been pretty much without company for three years, and then, you know, they ran into another adult of the opposite sex; I'm just thinking there would be more touching and maybe some sex. My friend who watched it with me said they didn't have time for sex. I thought whoever was ultimately responsible for that movie should have had them touching right off the bat and then should have made time for sex. I would be touching someone after three years. I would be THRILLED to see someone. Especially of the opposite sex. I would have made time even if the crazies were coming through the roof.

Here is the librarian story:

Story available at http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/04/12/news/local/35-librarians.txt

Published on Saturday, April 12, 2008.
Last modified on 4/12/2008 at 1:02 am

Librarians who resisted FBI subpoenas will detail their story today

By LUELLA N. BRIEN
Of The Gazette Staff

Two Connecticut librarians who became uncommon champions for civil liberties will present their unlikely story today in Billings.

In 2005, Peter Chase and George Christian, along with two other Library Connection librarians in that state, were served National Security Letters by the FBI. The letters, a form of subpoena, requested personal information from a library patron and sought records of all borrowed reading material and Internet usage. The librarians decided not to comply.

National Security Letters have been around for years but were rarely used until recent years, said Lex Hames, communications director with the American Civil Liberties Union in Montana. He said their power was enhanced with the passage of the Patriot Act in 2001.

The act includes a provision that expanded FBI authority to demand records without court approval and to prohibit recipients of National Security Letters from letting anyone know about the demand.

"It goes toward all the things wrong with allowing law enforcement to operate in secret and unconstitutionally without safeguards," Christian said.

That the librarians simply talked to each other about the letters they received could have been considered illegal. The letters come with a lifetime gag order, and breaking the gag order could result in a five-year federal prison sentence.

"Librarians have a professional commitment to the First Amendment," Christian said. "We will always resist the infringement of the First Amendment. It's our professional ethos."

The librarians enlisted the help of the ACLU and took the matter to a federal court, arguing that the gag order was unconstitutional.

The judge ruled in favor of the librarians, but the letters were still valid.

The FBI decided not to pursue the investigation into the library patron, and the librarians have since been sharing their tale with other Americans.

"It's important to share our story because of the secrecy," Christian said. "There are so many other people who can't talk about the letters they received. It remains a secret until the day they die."

The U.S. Department of Justice reported last year that least 150,000 letters have been served.

The ACLU contends that 300,000 letters have been served.

"That's 300,000 people who can never speak about it," Hames said. "These four librarians are the only ones who can even say they received letters."

The librarians, collectively known as John Doe in their lawsuit, couldn't be associated with the case because it could be considered a violation of the gag order.

They watched their fate play out on a closed-circuit television 50 miles from the courthouse, Hames said.

They had to meet with their lawyers in secret and couldn't discuss the ordeal with anyone except their lawyers.

"You don't really think of librarians out against the barricades protesting," Hames said. "These four men were facing prison time, and they were very brave in a quiet way."

Copyright © The Billings Gazette

Look for this book coming out in June ...

Kafka Comes to America: Fighting for Justice in the War on Terror
By Steven T. Wax
Other Press, $25.95
(358 pages)
ISBN 978-1-59051-295-1

Review from Publishers Weekly (Monday, March 17, 2008):

Federal public defender Wax masterfully delivers a harrowing story of the erosion of civil liberties after the September 11 terrorist attacks in a powerful testimony that reads like a thriller. Wax follows the stories of two men he represented, both victims of post-9/11 counterterrorism measures. The first – American citizen and fellow lawyer Brandon Mayfield – was arrested by the FBI as a suspect in the Madrid train station bombings in 2004, after the FBI claimed that a latent fingerprint found on the scene matched Mayfield's. The second story revolves around Adel Hamad, a Sudanese-born hospital administrator arrested in Pakistan while doing refugee relief work. Imprisoned for six months in “a fetid hell” for alleged connections with al-Qaeda, Hamad was hooded and shackled and transferred to Guantánamo Bay, where he has languished for the past four years. With considerable finesse, the author narrates these two gripping stories in alternating chapters through each stage of his clients' cases. Wax offers personal insight and professional outrage; his is a powerful voice that deserves to reach all Americans. (June)

Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

Love from your fan club prez, Jeanie