This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Legal

  • About That Clinton “Private Email” Server . . . .

    Well, this just keeps getting “better and better”.

    It turns out that the “private email server” that the former SECSTATE was using for work-related purposes wasn’t a stand-alone machine. Rather, it was apparently a server rented from an internet hosting company named “Platte River Networks”. The physical machinery was located in a data center in New Jersey; the precise ownership of that data center is unclear (hosting vendors sometimes lease physical hardware from other firms).

    And as the old Ronco TV ads said:  “But wait, there’s more!”  It also appears that when initially set up – e.g., for the first 2 to 3 months – the server had abysmally weak security overall, making it vulnerable to potential spoofing, monitoring, and unauthorized access.  And it also appears that the email stored on the server may never have been encrypted while in storage.

    Did I mention that Clinton traveled extensively during her first 3 months in office – including visits to Japan, Indonesia, Korea, China, Egypt, Israel, Belgium, Switzerland, and Turkey?

    The server was picked up by Federal agents on Wednesday of this week. But it seems there’s one last minor issue.

    That issue is that the server has been wiped clean – apparently professionally. There’s no useful information left on it, and the hosting company doesn’t have any backup copies of what it formerly contained.

    Hmm. Stonewall for months, then turn over a machine that has been professionally wiped. Yeah, that sounds completely innocent and aboveboard to me.

    Move along, folks. Nothing to see here.

  • About That Clinton “Private E-Mail” . . .

    . . . well, it appears that someone’s “got some s’plainin’ to do”.

    A former member of the Intel Community discusses what was allegedly found in that “private e-mail” here.  The article is IMO worthwhile reading.

    This one might be worth watching.  It appears extremely likely that a serious, deliberate mishandling of classified information occurred.  The key question will be whether DoJ decides to do anything meaningful.

  • Pollard may be released

    Pollard may be released

    Jonathon Pollard was arrested in 1985 for passing US secrets to Israel while he worked for the Naval Intelligence Command. In 1987, he pleaded guilty and sentenced to life in prison. His imprisonment has been highly controversial because his sentence was for passing secrets to our ally. While he spied for Israel, he was very well paid by that ally. He also passed classified information to Australia and attempted, unsuccessfully to trade in secrets with Pakistan, according to NCIS investigators. So, you see, the issue wasn’t about who he spied for, it was about the act of spying.

    Well, now the Obama Administration wants to make nice with the Israeli government, which has been lobbying for Pollard’s release since the door slammed shut behind him and it looks like he might make parole in November thirty years after his arrest, according to Fox News;

    The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that some U.S. officials hope the release will improve relations with Israel following the Iran nuclear deal. However, others denied any link between the release and the Iran deal exists.

    National Security Council spokesperson Alistair Baskey told Fox News on Friday that Pollard’s prison status ”will be determined by the United States Parole Commission according to standard procedures. There is absolutely zero linkage between Mr. Pollard’s status and foreign policy considerations.”

    The 60-year-old Pollard has been experiencing health problems in recent years, but the lead lawyer for Naval Intelligence during the investigation of Pollard, M.E. “Spike” Bowman, characterizes him as a less than sympathetic character according to Wiki;

    “Because the case never went to trial, it is difficult for outside observers to understand the potential impact and complexity of the Pollard betrayal,” he wrote. “There is no doubt that Pollard was devoted to Israel. However, the extent of the theft and the damage was far broader and more complex than evidenced by the single charge and sentence.” In his estimation Pollard “was neither a U.S. nor an Israeli patriot. He was a self-serving, gluttonous character seeking financial reward and personal gratification.”

  • Petraeus sentenced

    Petraeus sentenced

    Well, if you live under a rock, you probably haven’t heard that David Petraeus, the former commander of US Forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan and the former Director of the CIA has been sentenced for giving classified information to his girlfriend, Paula Broadwell, when they were involved in an extramarital affair. He was handed two years on probation and a hundred thousand dollar fine. The prosecutor in the case had asked for a $40,000 fine, but the judge thought that the breach of security was more serious. From Fox News;

    Among the secret information contained in the “black books” were the names of covert operatives, the coalition war strategy and notes about Petraeus’ discussions with President Obama and the National Security Council, prosecutors said.

    Those binders were later seized by the FBI in an April 2013 search of Petraeus’ Arlington, Virginia, home, where he had kept them in the unlocked drawer of a desk in a ground-floor study.

    Prosecutors said that after resigning from the CIA in November 2012, Petraeus had signed a form falsely attesting he had no classified material. He also lied to FBI agents by denying he supplied the information to Broadwell, according to court documents.

    Yeah, Martha Stewart did the same thing and went to jail for it, so….

    By the way, has anyone heard of charges being filed against Paula Broadwell, the ring knocker? I’ve heard the the FBI is investigating her participation in the security leak, but I don’t see any charges. I wonder why that is true.

  • More Comedy from the 9th Circus

    Well, the      gang of fools called the Ninth Circus Clowns of Unreal       “august body” called the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals out on the Left Coast has given us all some new comic relief.

    It seems that a 5-member panel of that       clown Krewe      group of distinguished jurists has decided that it’s OK to be deliberately evasive when testifying before a Grand Jury. But only if your deliberately evasive answers fall in the “little white lie” or “What difference does it make?” categories.

    Specifically, a five-member panel of the US 9th Circuit has overturned Barry “My Head Just Got Bigger” Bonds’ felony conviction for obstruction of justice. The stated rationale was that Bonds’ testimony for which he was convicted of obstruction of justice – while evasive and highly implausible on its face – did not regard an issue of “central importance” to the government’s investigation. Since the issue was not one that was of “central importance”, per the Ninth Circus Circuit Panel, it was therefore permissible for Bonds to be evasive and dissemble while under oath.

    So, it’s OK to lie when under oath, or when answering an investigator’s questions  – sometimes. But only about
    “small stuff”. And sometimes it’s not OK.

    Yeah, that makes “perfect sense”.  Does anyone but me see a potential problem with that?

    Hey, I understand the concept of a prosecutor conducting a “fishing expedition; no, I don’t support that at all. But regardless of how you feel about PEDs in professional sports, the drugs involved were and are illegal. The questions Bonds was asked hardly seem unrelated to the subject of PEDs. Further, his answers seem to me to have been designed more to avoid going on the record – or exerting Fifth Amendment rights – than anything else.  IMO, it’s clear he was simply avoiding answering relevant questions clearly and completely.

    As always, YMMV. Bonds’ testimony can be found here; read it and decide for yourself. Be forewarned that it’s nearly 150 pages.

    IMO this isn’t exactly a shock.  Hey, the case was heard by a panel from the Ninth Circus, located out on the Left Coast. They seem to use a different definition of “reality” much of the time.

  • Yet Another Mass Shooting . . .

    . . . but this one is a bit different.

    Seems that in a city – I’ll name it in a bit – someone went into a restaurant and shot up the place. Several were wounded, and two have died so far.

    Authorities believe the shooting to be gang-related. It’s thought that an automatic weapon was involved.

    However, this isn’t a good news story. The perps got away; there was no one on the scene with a weapon to confront them. And no: that’s not because the restaurant had declared itself to be a “no gun zone”.

    It’s because the shooting happened in Goteborg, the second largest city in Sweden – or, as someone we “know and love” might spell it, “Sweaden”. (smile) One of those calm, safe, “nanny-state” countries in Europe that US gun control advocates keep holding up as the “model we need to emulate”.

    There was no one to oppose the shooter because Sweden’s firearms laws make it exceptionally difficult to obtain a permit for concealed carry. While firearms ownership is legal, virtually all firearms ownership requires a permit (a few exceptions – including weapons made before 1890 which do not use “gas-tight unit cartridges” and air rifles – require no permit). The number of firearms that may be owned is restricted unless one can demonstrate a “valid reason” for owning more.

    Even carrying a weapon in public in Sweden is in general unlawful unless for a “specific, legal purpose” such as hunting or going to a gun range. Concealed carry permits are rarely issued to anyone except police and “specially-trained security officers” – and only then when one can demonstrate compelling need, such as a “proven and very real threat to one’s life”.

    Yet the incident happened in Sweden anyway – in spite of Sweden’s rather severe restrictions on firearms. And the article goes on to state that violence involving firearms is “is not uncommon in Sweden’s major cities”, though incidents such as this one are said to be “rare”.

    Sounds like criminals in Sweden pay about as much attention to gun laws as criminals here. So, pray tell: what makes our “liberal brethren” think new gun control laws here will work any better than they do today in Sweden in preventing gun crime?

  • 32 media companies support Chris Kyle estate

    32 media companies support Chris Kyle estate

    According to Variety, 32 media companies, including A&E Television Networks, Buzzfeed, Cox Media Group, E.W. Scripps Co., Gannett Media, Gawker, Hachette, Hearst Corp., the New York Times Co. and Time Inc., plan to file an amicus brief in support of Taya Kyle in her appeal of the libel suit won by Jimmy Janos a few months ago.

    “An award of profits has nothing to do with the harm suffered by the plaintiff; it is punishment, plain and simple,” Abrams wrote in the brief. “And given the lack of proportion between the offending passage and the book as a whole, in this case it is clear that includes punishment of wholly protected speech.”

    He also noted that the state of Minnesota, where the trial was held, views an award of profits as punitive. Yet no punitive damage claim was submitted to the jury, and “none could have been because punitive damages are not permitted against an estate.”

    “Yet under the guise of an unjust enrichment claim, they were effectively and improperly awarded here,” he wrote.

    […]

    In a statement, the MPAA said that the amicus brief “aims to insure that the law of defamation does not impinge on First Amendment rights” and “is just another example of our industry’s longstanding commitment to the protection of free speech rights of all creators and storytellers.”

    Suing widows shouldn’t be profitable.

  • About the Petraeus Deal . . . .

    Jonn’s written a couple of articles (here and here) recently concerning former GEN David Petraeus’ recent plea-bargain deal. And in truth, I generally (no pun intended) agree with Jonn’s assessment.

    But I have to say that I agree with him for very different reasons.

    Many have castigated Petraeus for his carrying on an affair with his biographer, former USAR MAJ Paula Broadwell.  (Yes, former MAJ; her promotion to LTC was reportedly revoked, and she no longer seems to be a member of the USAR.)  While I don’t condone such behavior, for a number of reasons that’s not my primary problem Petraeus’ actions.

    Why?  Well, for starters the affair was consensual, and reportedly began after Petraeus had left active duty.  While IMO such conduct is morally wrong, no one is perfect.

    Further, expecting perfection in senior leadership is IMO foolish.  I don’t really think we want – or should expect – either senior military leaders or the head of the CIA to be saints.  Intel can be a dirty business, and exceptionally few GOs/FOs are Chaplains.  Saints aren’t normally the people you’d expect to excel in such roles.

    My issue is with a different failing – and its potential effects, which we may not yet have seen or even know about.

    Petraeus has pleaded to unauthorized retention of classified materials.  That’s bad.  But here’s a quote from one published article concerning the recent plea deal that describes just what he retained.  I’ve added emphasis (italics) in the quote below.

    All eight books “collectively contained classified information regarding the identifies of covert officers, war strategy, intelligence capabilities and mechanisms, diplomatic discussions, quotes and deliberative discussions from high-level National Security Council meetings… and discussions with the president of the United States.”

    Those notebooks were apparently stored unsecurely at times.  They were reportedly kept by Petraeus “in a rucksack”, and were loaned for a period of several days to his biographer and mistress – Broadwell – for her perusal.

    That means we don’t really know who else might have seen them.  We know Petraeus and Broadwell have.  But do we truly know if anyone else looked them over – with or without their permission?

    Maybe no one else has in fact seen them.  As this point, that appears to be the case.  But if access to them was achieved clandestinely . . . we might not know that for a while.

    Some might ask if that’s really a “big deal”, or “what difference does it make?”  For anyone asking those questions, let me refer you to Dmitri Polyakov, Adolf Tolkachev, Sergei Motorin and Leonid Poleshchuk.  You can ask them if being exposed by-name is a “big deal” or “makes a difference”.

    Or, more precisely:  you can ask their surviving family and friends.  Each of those individuals was reportedly executed by Soviet authorities not terribly long after being exposed by Aldrich Ames and/or Robert Hanssen as a US intelligence source.

    Intel isn’t a game.  And in real life, sometimes exposure as an intel source or operative ends more than that an individual’s usefulness.

    No, General – that risk wasn’t worth it.  And I can certainly see why you jumped at this deal.

    You got off damn easy.