(New York, NY) – President-elect Donald J. Trump today announced that he intends to nominate U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions to serve as Attorney General and U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.  Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has been selected to be the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions has dedicated his life to public service. He has a distinguished legal career and has served as both the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama and Alabama Attorney General prior to his service in the U.S. Senate. He has been one of President-elect Trump’s trusted advisors on the campaign and will now continue his service as our nation’s chief law enforcement officer. (more…)

The story about the CIA prepping for a possible cyber attack against Russia is akin to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad building wooden Aircraft Carriers for Iranian military exercises.  In essence this story is, laughable domestic consumption only.
Pushed by NBC-Universal this story is so fundamentally absurd, it’s beyond silly.
If the U.S. were going to launch a cyber operation against Russia:  #1) it would never be announced, and #2) it would not be the CIA carrying it out, it would be the NSA.
So why push the ridiculous story?   The motive is about propping up the failing candidacy of Hillary Clinton. There are trillions of dollars at stake, and sometimes strategic desperation calls for deployment of “The Bathtub Principle”:
https://twitter.com/SharylAttkisson/status/786412180929257474
Has everyone forgotten the actual mid-August public speech where Secretary Pickles claimed an international coalition led by Vladimir Putin was using mind-control and frog memes to manipulate nationalist inhabitants of planet earth – in a grand conspiracy against her campaign?… (more…)

NPR has received some preliminary examples of the type of analyst intelligence that was skewed to create a more favorable opinion of President Obama’s foreign policy approach toward ISIS.
In one example the following is noted:

[…]  A military source described the evolution of one report that came out of CENTCOM’s intelligence shop. It was a dispatch on an ISIS attack in Iraq near the Syrian border. The initial CENTCOM report read, “Iraqi forces retreated.” It was sent back for reworking, the source said. Eventually that report came to read that the Iraqi forces had not retreated, but instead had reinforced another Iraqi position. The final draft suggested a strategic decision had been made. But that was not what happened, the source said — the Iraqi forces ran. A second source confirmed the account of the change in wording to put the Iraqi forces in a more positive light. (read more)

In what appears to be a profound sense of professional obfuscation, the head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Lloyd Austin, told congress that despite the revisions and/or manipulations currently being investigated by the inspector general, the intelligence did not go directly to President Obama. (more…)

Many people will look at this devastating sunlight upon the U.S Intel Community as a political embarrassment for the Obama administration.  However, I would disagree. 
This entire exposition smells more like a deflective shield targeted to give the White House an excuse for terrible Mid-East policy.   This “revelation” protects the White House more than it causes embarrassment; it gives Obama excuses for his failures…. and you’ll note this is surfacing at a time when Russia is entering Syria under the auspices of needing to fight ISIS, because the U.S. has failed.  There’s an obvious transparency to the timing…
(Via Daily Beast) More than 50 intelligence analysts working out of the U.S. military’s Central Command have formally complained that their reports on ISIS and al Qaeda’s branch in Syria were being inappropriately altered by senior officials, The Daily Beast has learned.
The complaints spurred the Pentagon’s inspector general to open an investigation into the alleged manipulation of intelligence. The fact that so many people complained suggests there are deep-rooted, systemic problems in how the U.S. military command charged with the war against the self-proclaimed Islamic State assesses intelligence. (more…)

It has recently been reported that a Russian computer geek was able to crack the encryption code used by Edward Snowden to protect his massive cache’ of U.S. NSA files.  According to reports both Russia and China had been working for a long time to break the encryption and discover the full scope of the data Snowden removed from the NSA downloads.

(Via Daily Mail) MI6 has pulled its spies out of ‘hostile countries’ and America’s intelligence agencies are on high alert after Russia and China cracked encrypted files leaked by fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The top-secret documents contain information that could lead to the identification of British and American spies, according to senior officials in Downing Street, the Home Office and the security services.

A senior Home Office official accused Snowden – the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor responsible for the biggest confidential information leak in US history – of having ‘blood on his hands’ after they gained access to over one million files. (more…)

An underreported story today comes amid the resignation of Stacia Hylton, the head of the U.S. Marshals Service.  The timing of the resignation could not be more transparently tied to a growing investigation into domestic surveillance programs operated without oversight, and potentially unconstitutional.

For the past several years stories have been quietly surfacing about the USMS using stealth cell phone captures via drone and fixed unit operations known as “Stingray Devices”.

Stingray technology secretly captures cell phone communication, data, voice and text from users without their knowledge.

In addition the USMS has recently been outlined using Automatic License Plate Reading (ALPR) technology to track movements of people driving. Both programs track every American and are not related specifically to investigative foundations.  (more…)

The debate is being carried on CSPAN2 – CLICK HERE However, Mitch McConnell is doing everything in his power to stop discussion of the matter.

Senate votes to limit debate on Patriot Act extension.

— TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) May 31, 2015

Does anyone really believe the programs will cease merely because they are no longer authorized by law?  Really?
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration warned Friday that a bundle of terror-fighting surveillance tools will expire at midnight Sunday unless Congress acts to renew Patriot Act provisions — putting pressure on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to break the impasse over the issue.
The Senate deadlocked last weekend on a string of proposals meant to keep the provisions running past the end-of-the-month deadline. McConnell is calling the Senate back into session on Sunday, “to make every effort to provide the intelligence community with the tools it needs to combat terror,” spokesman Don Stewart said Friday.
But that session leaves just hours until the deadline, and it’s not clear whether any solution is in reach.  (read more)

McConnell (majority leader), and Cornyn (majority whip), lost this one.

(Via The Hill) Mitch McConnell staged an epic gamble over U.S. spying powers — and lost.
The Republican leader pledged to keep senators in Washington through the weekend to finish work on expiring provisions of the Patriot Act, but Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) called his bluff.
Instead, when the smoke cleared in the early hours of Saturday morning, the 2016 presidential contender was the one with bragging rights.
The battle between the two Kentucky Republicans spilled over on the Senate floor, with Paul using procedural tactics to force the chamber into an early Saturday vote. He then used his leverage to kill off McConnell’s repeated attempts to reauthorize the expiring National Security Agency (NSA) programs — first for two months, then for eight days, then for five, then three, then two. (more…)

Bulk data collection too excessive to be legal.

NEW YORK – The National Security Agency’s bulk phone record collection program was dealt a blow Thursday as a federal appeals court said the controversial program exceeds what Congress has allowed and urged lawmakers to step in.
A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan permitted the National Security Agency program to continue temporarily as it exists, and all but pleaded for Congress to better define where the boundaries exist.
“In light of the asserted national security interests at stake, we deem it prudent to pause to allow an opportunity for debate in Congress that may (or may not) profoundly alter the legal landscape,” the opinion written by Circuit Judge Gerald Lynch said. (more…)