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John Yoo tells us that we’re silly to worry about his disappearing emails because DOJ emails are unclassified. (h/t Jason Leopold)
In fact, the investigation is the gift that keeps on giving. On Friday, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) excoriated Margolis’ superior officer because OPR claimed it could not access 2002 e-mails from me and another Justice Department official who worked on the memos. Leahy’s outrage displays how little he and OPR understand the basics of intelligence.
The Justice Department’s e-mail system is unclassified and could not be used to discuss interrogation methods, which were classified at the highest levels of secrecy. Nor do I have any idea why OPR now asserts that the e-mails, which were sought years after I had left the government, have gone missing. During my interviews, OPR lawyers showed me several printouts of my e-mails. If they need more they should look in the files of the other lawyers on the network. The suggestion of a cover-up is just Leahy chasing his own tail to feed left-wing conspiracy theories.
I’m not sure I believe John Yoo (and why should I) when he says the whole of DOJ’s email system is considered unclassifed.
But just for the sake of discussion, let’s say it is. Does that mean he’d be carrying on top secret conversations on another email system–as it looks like Steven Bradbury was doing in 2007 when he was trying to give telecoms retroactive immunity? This email turned over in EFF’s FOIA (page 55) seems to show that Bradbury was conducting his top secret conversations about NSA on an NSA email.
Also note–the emails that OPR did get? First of all, they note that they were unclassified. And guess who turned them over to OPR?
On August 31,2004, Bradbury gave OPR copies of unclassified documents relating to the Bybee Memo, including email and documents from the computer hard drives and files of the former OLC attorneys who worked on the project.
Update. Okay, this is an email that Jim Comey sent Chuck Rosenberg talking about torture memos–so presumably it was sent in roughly the same email system that Yoo’s emails were sent. And while they don’t let us see what the domain name is, it’s clear it’s not the unclassified usdoj.gov email.
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Yoo was very possibly on the WHiteHouse email system as well.
And if Gradbury only gave OPR unclassified emails, that woud explain why so many are missing, because the rest of themare still classified
They either are not classified and are truly missing or OPR didn’t even care enough to ask that question, because the answer is certainly easy enough to ascertain and report. I don’t buy that the explanation is that the pertinent emails are classified, not missing; but, if that is the case, it certainly demonstrates what an absolute sham this all is that OPR, Margolis and Holder could not even competently deduce and relate those facts on a critical issue.
Private emails and RNC server emails were part of the mix during Libby scandal. is this a possibility that they circumvented the protocols?
I think it was the Libby trial in which counsel led witness thru a description of the mundane technique of using various logons for different email accounts; also, I seem to recall a mention of a physically separate standalone workstation for some communications. The email image above From [redacted], To [recipient 1 redacted], [recipient 2] *SBradbury* [redacted]@*nsa[account], appears to reflect one such parallel [secure] network. However, there are so many redactions in even OPR and IG reports that *unclassified* seems a poor descriptor, even when nominally SJC views an unredacted version, especially with respect to attachments like in the *erasure* of video[s]; or the **bulletpoints**. Yet, following the unclassified system concept, it becomes more likely an mzm or govTech did the olc *unclassified* net architecture, as well. I think there are many avenues SJC could explore to answer the question of what happened to all the [preserved, not produced] email records which were necessary to prepare a balanced OPR report.
If I remember the Philadelphia venue news blurb by Yoo from an excerpt I saw in the past few hours, he also claims *(a) five-year study by [OPR] has ended and declared [Yoo] did nothin [wrong].*
We know for a fact that the National Security Council folks in the White House (and perhaps others like Addington) used both an unclassified network provided by the White House Office of Administration (OA) and a classified network provided by the White House Communications Agency (WHCA).
I would guess that Yoo (as well as Bradbury and select “others”) were in fact provided with access to a classified network.
But I would challenge Yoo’s description of the DOJ network as “unclassified”. I would guess that instead he is referring to the prohibition on using standard department networks throughout the government for communications that are classified at the Sensitive Compartment Information (SCI) level.
And finally, there is this part of Yoo’s ramble:
(My Bold)
In reference to the bolded part, I make the following observations:
First, it would seem that Yoo’s statement of “…they should look in the files of the other lawyers on the network…” is in fact an admission, against interests, that Yoo did indeed delete his own email trails in violation of the FRA. Otherwise, why wouldn’t Yoo suggest looking in his own files?
Secondly, it would seem that Yoo somewhat contradicts his own earlier insistence that his work was done on a separate classified network by directing the OPR to “…look in the files of the other lawyers on the network…”
Are the other lawyers also on that separate classified network? Most DOJ lawyers probably weren’t, but perhaps some few like Bradbury, Bybee, Koester may have been among the “chosen”.
If so, that still doesn’t answer that first question of why not look into Yoo’s own files.
MD@5, I noticed that too (look at other people*s [email/hardcopy {like Radack}/ other sorts of]*files*. I wonder if there is something about Exchange*s vectors for attachments that Yoo thinks might protect him by this sort of misdirection. *Attachment not available, sourced from other [compartment]/[secure system]*.
If I were Leahy, I’d be wicked pissed…
Did anyone ever get close to looking in Darth’s man-sized safe?
Seems plenty of incriminating stuff could be hidden there and then shipped to his digs on the eastern shore where it could be burned and scattered into the Chesapeake.
Of course I don’t think for a minute that Cheney would have such little regard for history as to destroy important records. /g
I think anything with an “NSA.GOV” address is public facing and therefore probably the unclass system.
If NSA uses another domain beside gov, what would you think it would be? Because I sure don’t see them using com, and they don’t exactly meet the qualificatons for using edu and org.
baystatelibrul @7
no you wouldn’t be.
leahy is incapable of outrage.
that’s why he needs to be retired to nice comfy assisted-living quarters in the greatstatuv.
There’s always .mil.
There’s always .mil
That is the strangest paragraph. It is indeed self-contradictory.
pjevans @11
“meet the qualifications for…”
we’re the National Security Administration of the United States;
we don’t need to meet no stinkin’ qualifications.
we OWN the american telecomminications network – ALL of it.
if we want to be .edu, we’ll be .edu.
you don’t like that?
call the president and complain.
I don’t think they meet the qualifications for that, either, although they probably have Friends in High Places who will cheerfully lie for them and say that they do.
Personally I favor some superglue on the hinges of their gates. While the gates are closed.
I’m thinking they were using JWICS or SIPRNet.
I am unfamiliar with how users are identified on these systems, but I think, at least for SPIRNet, all addresses are .mil and are uniquely different from the civilian internet in that they are formatted like navy.smil.mil …
OT — Folks, anyone can get a .org (or .net for that matter), those rules are not really applied any more. I assume it’s different for .mil and .gov and .edu, I would expect the registrars for those to operate quite differentlly from your basic GoDaddy type flashy company. But get real, the frickin’ NSA can get any TLD or domain it really wants, so assume its possible.
Also, a quick terminology lesson:
“Domain” or “domain name” is the part before the dot -plus- the part after the dot: emptywheel.com, firedoglake.com, etc.
“Top Level Domain” or “TLD” is the part after the dot: .com, .org, .edu, .mil, .info, .uk, .jp, etc.
Pedantically,
— Hmmm.
NSA might be username@nsa.ic.gov … ?
pjevans @18
good idea.
oh, wait,
they ‘re spooks.
darn.
Actually, the easy one to get is com.
All the others actually do have rules (AFAIK) – I belong to a group that has an org address, and they did have to provide documentation that they’re non-profit etc.
Hey, it’s still good. They have to close the gates sometime, after all ….
(I lived in an apartment complex where management was bad enough that I considered doing it to the office doors. Preferably after stuffing the keyholes with something.)
OT — I don’t doubt it, but just as a data point, I personally didn’t have to do any such thing as of about 7 years ago when I registered my first .org domain name. Different registrars may well have had different levels of scrutiny in the past, however these days in the domain name industry the absence of any such rule is well known. Recently I had reason to register a goodly number of .org domain names and was never asked for any such verification.
OT — (cont’d) The only ones I’ve seen ask for any kind of verification recently are .cn (China) and .us, but there are many many TLDs these days, and I haven’t tried to register anything in the vast majority of them.
Ah, but there’s already been a big fire attributed to the ‘man-sized safe‘ (see comments). But contemporary accounts of the fire (e.g. Fire Breaks Out In Cheney’s Office) that I have found do not mention the safe. (See also
Fire in a White House Office Building ; Fire out at building next to White House.)
Bob in AZ
hmmm @various
thanks.
this was actually very helpful in my unending effort to try and understand how the vast mysterious internet works.
there’s a .us?
and a .cn?
who uses them?
what for?
And how does the FIRE fit in?
Not that I don’t hold Dick Cheney in the highest regard.
Leahy showed real outrage at Sara Taylor.
continuing from @29
hmmm,
on reflection, i.e., on thinking before opening my big typepad,
“.com.us” would be from another country sent to the us,
just as “.com.nz” would be to new zealand from within the u. s.
loo hoo @31
yeah, he was tough there.
your cite highlights just the right issue – oaths to the C.
and what i take to be your implicit question is just the right question – so why can’t the senator ask really tough questions of really powerful folk?
I have no idea. But I doubt it’s politics.
loo hoo @34
:-)
OT (except for the fire aspect):
From TheNextHurrah October 2007 thread “What Riley Said About Rove”
I was commenting (@Oct 25, 2007 at 00:05) how during the House Judiciary Committee’s 2007 interview of Jill Simpson, the majority and minority counsels (Crime Subcommittee) each cut off Ms. Simpson anytime she mentioned George Bush Senior’s ownership of the River Oaks Bank & Trust in Houston.
Then I noted that bank had a fire:
Notice the answer above. It is posted in March 2008!
Those were the days when threads remained open longer than a few days…
I presume the post is from the USAF Academy grad. Glad to know that he, or the military, are scanning the internet to clarify the record.
You know what else is stunning? Almost every one of the commenters on that thread from three years ago is still here live and kicking three years later. Except Phred, who is only absent because she is off working on a project, but will be back soon enough.
Yeah, I was amazed, too. Also that 3 years has gone by so quickly.
Time flies when your country is going to hell in a handbasket…..
My dearest skdadl, please head over here and join in the celebration.
True that.
I hope that at the end of this ride we are provided with our photos, like what one might obtain after completing the rollercoaster at an amusement park.
Sometimes it is very interesting to see what is posted to long dormant threads.
Some who were then lurking are now posting.
I remember this bank fire comment. LOL
A few follow up searches led to the 9-11 weeds.
I agree. Too bad we lost the functionality to capture late-to-the-party comments.
I am also consistently amazed at how well emptywheel saw an issue in old threads.
I still learn from reading them again.
“I am also consistently amazed at how well emptywheel saw an issue in old threads.” I must agree.
The other thing I find useful is to view the facts and names in the older threads with the perspective gained by more recent exposures and revelations.
Most of the late to the party comments aren’t much – but every once in a while there is a good one.
Wow. Really good catch.
Yeah, but I miss Jodi. And is shit stain remover who I think he is? (freep)!
I was wondering the same.
In the new iteration of emptywheel’s site, Jodi became JodiDog, briefly, before she was sent outside to play.
Maybe JodiDog came back in a new persona, too?
Her project… Plumb the Mystery: How Green Bay can find their Packer rhythm?
Oh, those were the days…The jodi days…
How do you know the Comey-Rosenberg e-mail was not sent using the unclass DOJ system? What am I missing here?
“Comey, James (ODAG)” formatting appears in documents released on the Tim Griffin hiring ordeal – and presumably those weren’t classified.
I keep a “tab” open on all EW threads until they’ve been dormant for 12 hours or so. I’m just checking up on things now, before breakfast, and have five threads open from yesterday, and haven’t even started on today’s threads yet. It is a wonder that our modern computers can handle as many windows as I have open!
Bob in AZ
Know history repeats itself but this push to strike Iran when the dead and injured or millions displaced in Iraq have even been counted or acknowleged is insane as well as being criminal.
Am amazed by some of the folks who call into C-Span’s Washington Journal and say “we have spent enough in Iraq, or why don’t the people there appreciate what he have done” Yada yada. The MSM, our Reps etc really like keeping most Americans in the dark in regard to what has taken place in Iraq.
You know about the JWICS and SIPRnet systems, but not all the SIPRnet addresses are mil — there’s gov as well.
The addresses Comey and Rosenberg used are approximately 18 letter characters in length, already have a pretty good guess on the last 12 characters. Would be nice to pin down the first six characters before a dot but after the at symbol.
the whole of DOJ’s email system is considered unclassifed.
Just a SWAG, but I’d say that’s a big fat crock of shit…and Yoo is about two ticks away from full-blown sociopath.
The email thread you link to in your update ? The “orginal Message” that has the email addy’s redacted?
The redaction for COmey’s email addy is not complete. You can see a tail hanging down from the last letter.
So, it can’t be a “.gov” addy. The regular DOJ email system uses “.gov”
It could be a “.org”, but that doesn’t make much sense. What .org could be relevant?
Yoo outright lied to the Philly.com, because there’s secure email used by the DOJ.
He thinks nobody outside of DOJ knows about it, which is pretty arrogant since there are publicly available documents which clearly indicate there’s a secure network for DOJ communications.
The tail you see could very well coincide with the tail in a .gov domain; it’s fuzzy, but an “ov” can fit after a “g” just before the caret at the end.
Question, cause I ain’t a techie. Could the backend of Comey’s email be “.gov.ag” or some such for afganistan? Like using his regular email addy, but adding on the the country form which it was sent?
really? The space seemed too small to me.
And the space in front of it seemed too big for the regular DOJ email addy.
The typefont on the copy that EW has up is pretty large
I stumbled across 6-7 characters in front of “USDOJ.GOV” in a recent search. Could have been a Comey, Bradbury or one of the FOIA officers’ doc dumps in a recent search. Of course can’t find it now, so back to looking…
But usdoj.gov is only 9 characters, so assuming you’re formatting for classification which would presumably be usdoj.ic.gov?
Anything “.ic.gov” is only on one of the two (or more) secure networks.
The domains for the other secure network you’ve mentioned previously has a different format.
Close, but no banana – yet.
I thought ticks only carried Lyme’s Disease. Someone tell Yoo to tuck his pants into his socks.
So what is the sourcing on this email:
Did Yoo violate classification rules and discuss the use of insects EIT in an unsecure email, thinking he was all super slick by calling Zubaydah boo boo, or does that email have a non DOJ email addy if it were unredacted?
Jon Walker has a fresh cross-post available: Steny Hoyer Latest Democrat to Say House Must Act First
I think that email was a sloppy message to [Koester] to use the secure email system and check for info.
Yoo arrogantly thought that nobody reading the “up-top” unclassified emails would ever realize that 1) “Boo-boo” = Zubaydah, and 2) there was another system Koester might now go and use to check.
Publicly available research would suggest, then there could also be a:
usdoj.smil.gov
or
usdoj.smil.mil
or if Yoo et al were given privileges elsewhere they could have been on someone else’s network with similar formatting.
Sep question.
Still wondering why Bradbury was given an unclass NSA email. Seems as though he had to regularly email Vito Potenza at NSA. (Wasn’t Potenza one of the two NSA auditors that Addington went crazy nuts on to prevent from reading them into the wiretapping program?)
Anyway, are NSA’s unclass accounts locked down to only receive email from other NSA accounts?
(Sounds the buzzer). Wrong again.
SIPRNet addresses for USDOJ would be
user.name@usdoj.sgov.gov
James Douglass’s book JFK and the Unspeakable furnishes plenty of evidence that CIA people were sprinkled throughout government agencies at least in the 1950′s and 1960′s.
There you go, much closer…just need to find out what the 6 or 8 letter subdomain would be in front of .usdoj and after the at symbol.
Note this graphic for example.
I’ll see if I can find it…
Most (all?) versions of this Comey – Rosenberg correspondence referencing Ullyot I’ve seen show no declassification markings, nor exception codes (b)(3) or (b)(6) etc.
Why is that?
On a private, secure network there is no requirement that the e-mail addresses adhere to common Internet naming conventions. They could use whatever top level domain name they wanted to. E-mail from the secure network should never hit the public Internet except possibly through an encrypted tunnel (not sure about how likely that is).
Having said this, the government may still very well adhere to external Internet standards on the internal networks.
They could make up anything they want, but the Comey/Rosenberg email appears to follow a standard convention used by other persons at DOJ.
The address most likely follows this format:
[name] @[something] .usdoj .sgov .gov
Where [something] could be a department, function, site, location or program name.
There’s at least a couple other options, ones which might be more likely for other individuals, but they are less likely for this particular email.
Live chat at Philly.com with John Yoo.
Will post this to next thread as well.
Yep. I got links to some of those docs on the next thread.
I thought that part of Yoo’s defense is that he never caused any single human being to be tortured, he only gave advice to others about what techniques they could use. If Boo boo is an individual person, then Yoo was in deep enough to be held accountable by Padilla. (it seems to me)
What’s interesting about that form of domain name is that the smil or sgov has about the same function as the mil or gov TLD. Meaning you could lose the .mil or .gov part, treat .smil or .sgov as the TLD, and know for sure that the email could never get out to any recipient on the public internet because those are not legit TLDs on the public internet. (The domain names would not resolve to any IP address, so the messages could not passed along towards their final destinations.)
Where this gets kinda potentially fascinating is that from that PoV, there is no reason in the world for an email sent from inside the secure system to have the final .mil or .gov if the message is supposed to stay off the public internet. Turn that around, and the only reason to have a .mil after a .smil or a .gov after a .sgov is if the message is intended to go out through the security membrane and across the public internet at some point in its routing. So… are some of these messages actually intended to be seen (or at least routed in part) externally? Le wow.
Looking from the other end, if a message is being sent from an outside sender on the public internet, the .smil.mil or .sgov.gov convention could in theory (depending on the topology and router setup etc. for subdomains within .mil and .gov) allow that outside message to pass through the membrane to a recipient in the secure system…! Also le wow.
An IT department dedicated to security would never allow such addresses to be used as a security evasion vector. But a compromised IT department just might.
Slightly OT: What kind of transmission system would one use to send a top secret compartmented email?
Assume any encryption is crackable with enough computer power, wouldn’t the government then opt for a method other than cable for transmission of the encrypted messages?
It would require some form of authentication, but maybe such transmission would not need to follow actual email heading formatting.
What about infrared, direct line-of-sight, through-the-air transmission capability between departments/buildings? (at least in the DC area to communicate between DOJ, Pentagon, WH?)
That would obviate the need for constantly checking underground wires/optical cables/copper wires for splices, bugs, and optical splitters.
on further investigation, looks like infrared is potentially interceptable discreetly by a third party.
At a guess, lasers should have some good applications here. The crypto could use one-time pads exchanged between the parties in advance; well nigh unbreakable.
Rayne… I found it again. It is smojmd.usdoj.gov
Appeared frequently in the documents released around the US Attorney firings.
Example…
http://www.justice.gov/oip/docs/nsa-letter.pdf
Here’s a little more on the sgov.gov regime:
http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/841001p.pdf
and a little more on classification:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dod/af053006.pdf
Not sure I want to go poking into this kinda stuff too far, actually, but thanks for sleuthing the links up (in case anyone else uses them). I seriously doubt anything remotely nefarious could be enabled by talking about this addressing-level stuff, it’s just that I sure wouldn’t want to be mistaken for someone trying to do anything funny.
Actually @77 I think I got a technical thing wrong: From the outside, the domain per se would be smil.mil / sgov.gov. Anything before that (and ending with a dot) would be the subdomain(s) part.
Not sure what document dump this item came from:
http://dspace.wrlc.org/doc/bitstream/2041/63700/00461.pdf
But it was declassified and you can see multiple sgov.gov addresses… So certainly is precedent for pulling things out of SIPRNet for public viewing (after being properly declassified, that is…)
Some good stuff you dug up.
Believe SMOJMD = Senior Management Office Justice Management Division
And it might well work in the addy, will try it with graphics package shortly.
Probably not the only acronym we’re looking for, though.
As for declassified docs dumped — that’s the trick. If we can’t see into the classified/secret stuff, we can’t know that they stiffed requests for compliant content. Pulling stuff out can be done but we’d have to have more cooperation and assistance from somebody to that end.
What I don’t understand here is why the Comey-Rosenberg email has no classification (and de-classification) marks. Zero. Why was it scrubbed? Or was it ever properly classified?
Perhaps by virtue of the fact it’s a closed, secure network dedicated to classified content they don’t mark content as such.
Just a minor clarification re: the email you point to in the EFF FOIA release. The redactions on that page are b(3) redactions, presumably relying on the NSA Act, not b(1) redactions of classified information.
Nate