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In the recent stream of disclosures about National Security Agency surveillance programs, one document, sources say, has been conspicuously absent: the original — and still classified — judicial interpretation that held that the bulk collection of Americans’ data was lawful.
That document, written by Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, then chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), provided the legal foundation for the NSA amassing a database of all Americans’ phone records, say current and former officials who have read it.
ollar-Kotelly’s interpretation served as the legal basis for a court authorization in May 2006 that allowed the NSA to gather on a daily basis the phone records of tens of millions of Americans, sources say. Her analysis, more than 80 pages long, was “painstakingly thorough,” said one person who read it. The date of the analysis has not been disclosed.
A classified 2009 draft report by the National Security Agency’s inspector general relayed some details about the interaction between the court’s judges and the NSA, which sought approval for the Bush administration’s top-secret domestic surveillance programs. The report was described in The Washington Post on June 16 and released in full Thursday by The Post and the British newspaper the Guardian.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the former chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, took the highly unusual step Friday of voicing open frustration at the account in the report and court’s inability to explain its decisions.
The document portrays the surveillance court as “amenable” to the government’s legal theory to “re-create” authority for the Internet metadata program that had initially been authorized by President George W. Bush without court or congressional approval. The program was shut down in March 2004 when acting Attorney General James B. Comey and senior leaders at the Justice Department threatened to resign over what they felt was an illegal program.
Kollar-Kotelly disputed the NSA report’s suggestion of a fairly high level of coordination between the court and the NSA and Justice in 2004 to re-create certain authorities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that created the court in response to abuses of domestic surveillance in the 1960s and 1970s.
For about 30 years, the court was located on the sixth floor of the Justice Department’s headquarters, down the hall from the officials who would argue in front of it. (The court moved to the District’s federal courthouse in 2009.) “There is a collaborative process that would be unnatural in the public, criminal court setting,” said a former Justice official familiar with the court.
On July 14, 2004, the surveillance court for the first time approved the gathering of information by the NSA, which created the equivalent of a digital vault to hold Internet metadata. Kollar-Kotelly’s order authorized the metadata program under a FISA provision known as the “pen register/trap and trace,” or PRTT.
The ruling was a secret not just to the public and most of Congress, but to all of Kollar-Kotelly’s surveillance court colleagues. Under orders from the president, none of the court’s other 10 members could be told about the Internet metadata program, which was one prong of a larger and highly classified data-gathering effort known as the President’s Surveillance Program, or PSP.
Bobbie Kilberg (née Barbara Greene born 25 Oct, 1944) is a Republican operative who has worked for Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush.
In May 2010, she was named to the Governor's Commission on Government Reform and Restructuring and, in August 2010, she was named to the Governor's Commission on Military and National Security Facilities
Controversies[edit]
Improper gifts[edit]
McDonnell is under criminal investigation over allegations that he and his family received various "gifts" from Star Scientific executive Jonnie Williams.[210] Those gifts are said to total more than $145,000 including a $6,500 Rolex watch for McDonnell, a $15,000 Oscar de la Renta gown for his wife, Maureen McDonnell, $15,000 in catering for McDonnell's daughter's wedding, $70,000 to a corporation owned by McDonnell and his sister, and $50,000 in a check to McDonnell's wife.[211][212] None of these gifts were reported in the McDonnell's annual financial filings.[213] Senator David Ramadan confirmed that he was called to a grand jury in what is assumed to provide testimony on this subject.[214]
According to a July report from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, McDonnell repaid loans from Jonnie Williams amounting to roughly $120,000. Although he publicly apologized for embarrassing the state, McDonnell re-asserted that he had broken no laws.[215]
Improper spending[edit]
In June 2013, McDonnell and his wife were the subject of a critical Washington Post article detailing their improper spending at the Executive Mansion, for items such as energy drinks, dog food, and a "detox cleanse". Following the report, a McDonnell spokesman explained that energy drinks were a standard part of their breakfast routine.[216] McDonnell reimbursed the state of Virginia $2,400 for food taken from the mansion by his children.[217]
In July 2013, according to the Washington Post, McDonnell reimbursed the state about $2,400 for the food and other items that Sean, his twin brother Bobby, and their sister Rachel, had removed from the Executive Mansion to take to their college dorms.[218]
In September, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly instructed the Obama administration to release him "forthwith," an order that took three months in part because the U.S. government was weighing its options.
In the end, Kuwaiti sent its own jet to the remote U.S. Navy base in southeastern Cuba Wednesday to fetch him under a release agreement negotiated between the two countries.
Al-Rabia, who holds a business degree from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona, Fla., won his freedom after his attorney, Cynamon, argued that U.S. officials had mistakenly identified the obese flight engineer as a key aide to Osama bin Laden at the 2001 battle of Tora Bora. He was also subjected to systematic abuse at Guantanamo until he told them what they wanted to hear, his attorneys argued.
But I think it might have to do with ELF hacking.
www.win.tue.nl...
Want to hack drone? First kill the ELF software?
blog.perquin.com...
The new firmware for the drone is called ‘fly’. Upon start it will listen on UDP port 7777, waiting for the PC based controller called ‘OpenFlight’ to connect. Once OpenFlight connects, ‘fly’ kills the Parrot firmware ‘program.elf’ and takes control of the drone. Now you can fly the drone with the PC keyboard. OpenFlight logs the flight data to a file called YYYYMMDDHHMMSS_navlog.csv.
And he did go to school at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University for UAVs.
The are expanding into UAVs even more.
www.news-journalonline.com...
How about this guy? Sgt. Maj. Terry Hamm was in trouble for DUIs under his command.
worldwide.erau.edu...
Local DUI part of a discipline problem?
articles.dailypress.com...
Sgt. Maj. Terry Hamm now works as a contractor in Aerospace.
www.linkedin.com...
Thomas Donilon incoming National Security Adviser for Obama?
His brother Michael C. Donilon, a counselor to Vice President Joseph R. Biden?
His wife, Cathy Russell, is Jill Biden's chief of staff.
We conclude that in the circumstances of the current armed conflict with al Qaeda, the restrictions set out in FISA, as applied to targeted efforts to intercept the communications of the enemy in order to prevent further armed attacks on the United States, would be an unconstitutional infringement on the constitutionally assigned powers of the President. The President has inherent constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and sole organ for the nation in foreign affairs to conduct warrantless surveillance of enemy forces for intelligence purposes to detect and disrupt armed attacks on the United States. Congress does not have the power to restrict the President’s exercise of that authority.
He joined the Bush administration as legal adviser to the General Counsel of the Department of Defense. In October 2003 he was appointed as an United States Assistant Attorney General, leading the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice under Attorney General John Ashcroft and Deputy Attorney General James Comey. He resigned in July 2004