Every year, for the first few Sundays after the Super Bowl, McCaffrey the MilleniaLab starts sulking at about 3:00 because for some reason we won’t turn on our weekly football game. (Last year we actually resorted to watching basketball the first weekend after the season ended.) So we decided to try to tire him out [...]

Maris Taylor has an important update on the OLC exigent letter opinion. Last year, DOJ’s now-retired Inspector General Glenn Fine released a report revealing how the FBI had used exigent letters to get call data information from telecoms with no oversight. Ryan Singel noted a reference to an OLC opinion that basically melted away the [...]

The Chamber of Commerce has tried to craft another non-denial denial that they engaged a bunch of private spooks to spy on people like Brad Friedman. But it’s still a non-denial denial. Once again, they emphasize that they didn’t pay HBGary. The U.S. Chamber never hired or solicited proposals from HBGary, Palantir or Berico, the [...]

Time to get the lead out and get America’s youth into an American Tahrir Square because the United States needs a revolution as much as anywhere in the world right now. Time for some real hope and change instead of the disingenuous drivel we were conned with in 2008.

Remember when that ignorant fool opined, “They hate us for our freedoms”? As one American still ashamed by that comment, let me thank Egypt for such an amazing display of what freedom is about. Congratulations! May it inspire those of us watching from America to reclaim our own democracy.

One of the more interesting documents on HBGary et al’s partnership with the Chamber of Commerce details the prices they wanted to charge. Now, other emails make it clear that the Chamber balked at what the team originally proposed would be $2 million of work–the Chamber didn’t pay these rates (indeed, they probably haven’t paid [...]

In a post I’ll write some day, I will show how the WikiLeaks cables show that every time a partner government threatens to use the high tech intelligence toys we share with it–notably our telecommunication wiretapping–to spy on domestic opponents, the Obama Administration makes a very concerted effort to disavow such efforts (if not end [...]

At some point the courts are going to have start calling bullshit on the government’s transparent attempts to use State Secrets to hide embarrassing information. From Charlie Savage, we have the story of Kevin Shipp, who tried to sue the CIA for all the medical problems his family suffered from being housed in a house [...]

The Chamber of Commerce has responded to ThinkProgress’ reporting of the Chamber’s discussions with Hunton & Williams about an intelligence campaign against USChamberWatch and other anti-Chamber efforts. It purports to deny any connection with Hunton & Williams and HBGary. More Baseless Attacks on the Chamber by Tom Collamore We’re incredulous that anyone would attempt to [...]

[Ed: Read the documents about the US Chamber's plan to spy on unions.] I noted yesterday how mind-numbingly ignorant analysis of Glenn Greenwald’s motivation as a careerist hack that was provided by HBGary. And if the allegations in the excerpts of former WikiLeaks volunteer Daniel Domscheit-Berg’s book are accurate, HBGary’s analysis about WikiLeaks itself is [...]