All Things Reform: Central Intelligence Agency

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Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Sign petition to release George W Bush administration's 'torture memos'

Pennsylvania Ave. in front of White House, Washington, DC USA. Image via Wikipedia

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From: Common Cause

Release the Torture Memos

Arn Pearson, Common Cause

America does not tolerate "secret laws." Justice Department: release the torture memos. Sign the petition!

Candidate Obama promised an era of unparalleled openness and transparency in Washington.

President Obama has a big opportunity to make good on those promises this Thursday.

That's when the Justice Department faces a legal deadline for announcing its decision on releasing long-secret torture memos that sought to justify the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" used by the CIA in questioning prisoners held in U.S. custody.

Voices within and outside of the Administration are arguing to keep the memos secret.1 They want to stop the truth from coming out about our government's involvement in torture. We need to make sure President Obama doesn't listen to them.

Sign the petition now calling on the White House and the Justice Department to release the Bush torture memos on Thursday.

The American people have the right to know what is in these memos. Attorney General Eric Holder and the White House Counsel have reportedly already urged for their release.2

An Administration dedicated to transparency and the rule of law shouldn't hide the legal arguments its predecessor used to justify reprehensible acts carried out in our name.

With the Thursday deadline fast approaching, please act today and sign the petition urging the release of the torture memos.

Thanks for all you do,

Arn Pearson, and the rest of the team at Common Cause

P.S. Tell your friends! Please forward this to 5 friends by clicking here.

1. "More delays in release of 'torture' documents," CNN, April 2, 2009, http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/02/us.torture.documents/

2. "'Holy Hell' Over Torture Memos," Newsweek, April 3, 2009, http://www.newsweek.com/id/192314

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Wednesday, March 25, 2009

US Election Assistance Commission very selective in reporting of CIA analysis of electronic voting machines

Government reform orgs. deliver news on major events within their areas of expertise.
From: The Examiner

U.S. Election Assistance Commission snubs CIA analyst's warning about electronic voting machines

March 25, 3:59 PM

U.S. Election Assistance Commission seal

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission was created to oversee federal elections and regulate the electronic voting machine industry. Slow to the task and led by holdovers from the abandoned National Association of State Election Directors oversight scheme, the EAC has inched along developing a bureaucratic infrastructure to address the problems of electronic voting machines.

The main problem with the software driven devices used in electronic voting machines is that they can be hacked by undetectable malicious code or in simple language, the machines cannot be trusted.

Academic studies are piling up against the various voting machine manufacturers over the security and reliability of the machines. In February the EAC arranged for a cyber-security specialist at the Central Intelligence Agency to give them a heads-up about hacking.

The EAC website has posted Steve Stigall's CIA resume for all the public to read. The EAC also posted a summary of his remarks. However, what the EAC did not post were Stigall's dire warnings about the dangers of the voting machines.

What the EAC told us.

Steve Stigall started working for the CIA in 1985. Stigall's early analytic career at the spy agency was focused on Soviet strategic missile forces. "Since 1995 he has specialized in foreign computer threats. In 2000 Mr. Stigall was inducted into CIA's Senior Analytic Service."

Describing a "growing potential for cyber vote fraud" the EAC summarized Stigall's remarks.

"An analysis of foreign countries' experience with computerizing their election systems has revealed challenges to the electronic safeguarding of increasingly computer-dependent elections. This presentation, while not addressing US-specific approaches, offers insights for policymakers in this country who seek to enhance the role of computers and computer networks in the electoral process."

What the EAC didn't tell us.

McClatchy Newspapers has obtained a transcript of Stigall's warning to the EAC which they kept from the official website and have not shared with 'policymakers' in any public manner.

Stigall told the EAC that the CIA had reported apparent vote-rigging in Venezuela, Macedonia and Ukraine. The news report was of "disturbing lessons for the United States" where Stigall warned of five entry points where a "malicious actor" could "make bad things happen."

Stigall told the EAC that any voting machine connected to the internet could be hacked and that machines not hooked up could be hacked wirelessly if the machine had a wireless card embedded in its hardware.

Stigall said that most web-based ballot systems were proven to be insecure. The CIA began studying foreign voting systems after concluding that foreigners might try to hack American elections to alter the outcome.

Stigall suggested that even an audit of the Venezuelan alleged-rigging may have been fixed. The CIA focused on Venezuela for study in part because Smartmatic, a Venezuela-connected company, owned Sequoia Voting Systems until 2007. The machines with a foreign connection were in use in 16 states and the District of Columbia raising concern at the CIA.

Stigall explained that in the country of Georgia people who died in the 1700's were added to the electronic voter registry. While in Macedonia the number of Albanians' purged from electronic voting lists amounted to "voter genocide".

According to the McClatchy story, Stigall asked the EAC not identify him yet the Commission posted his resume anyway.

[Original Examiner article accepts comments]

Thursday, January 22, 2009

President Obama signs Executive Orders restoring the US Constitution and rule of law in the treatment of terrorism prisoners

Government reform orgs. deliver news on major events within their areas of expertise.
From: Center for Constitutional Rights

CCR Praises Obama Orders, Cautions Against Escape Hatch for Torture

CONTACT: press@ccrjustice.org

January 22, 2009, New York – In response to President Obama’s signing of new executive orders today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) issued the following statement:

We welcome the beginning of the end of lawlessness. Under the previous administration, executive orders became synonymous with secrecy, torture and attempts to override the Constitution. It is genuinely uplifting to see them now used to set things right. President Obama’s orders today are an important first step in restoring the rule of law; let us take the next steps with great care not to open the way for a return to the darkness of these last years.

The order to close Guantánamo, though it provides little detail and allows perhaps too much time to get it done given the pressing issues at stake, is a good start. We believe the president will be able to close Guantánamo in less than a year: the priority must be to repatriate the many men who can go home and find safe havens for the approximately 60 who would face torture or persecution.

The government has to charge the rest of the detainees in federal criminal court. There can be no third way, no new schemes for indefinite or preventive detention or alternative national security courts. Any move in that direction would discredit all of the new administration’s efforts in the eyes of the world.

The order to close the CIA black sites where people were held in secret for the purpose of torture is to be applauded. There is no place for such black holes in a democracy. Their intended purpose is to circumvent the Geneva conventions and our own laws. If the order leaves the option of reviving those sites, it is more symbolic than a true reversal.

The order to make all agencies abide by the Army Field Manual’s acceptable interrogation tactics is perhaps the most important gesture toward restoring our moral authority as a nation. The Center for Constitutional Rights represents so many men who were brutally tortured by our government that this hits home for us in a way that it may not for those with no faces and lives to attach to the story.

Again, we caution that the order may leave an escape hatch if the CIA should want more tactics, i.e. torture, available in its arsenal. The Geneva conventions should be the only arbiter of what is possible for governments to do to human beings.

Today’s orders are filled with promise. In addition, to ensure no future administration will take us back to these dark times, there needs to be individual accountability for the torture program, and other crimes committed. Prosecution is the only way to deter future lawbreakers. These orders are the right start, let us make sure this does not happen again.

To read the text of the executive orders, click here or download the attachments below.

CCR has led the legal battle over Guantanamo for the last six years – sending the first ever habeas attorney to the base and sending the first attorney to meet with a former CIA “ghost detainee.” CCR has been responsible for organizing and coordinating more than 500 pro bono lawyers across the country in order to represent the men at Guantanamo, ensuring that nearly all have the option of legal representation. CCR represented the detainees with co-counsel in the most recent argument before the Supreme Court on December 5, 2007.

Attached Files

The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.

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