“[A] panel operating out of the White House — that meets in total secrecy, with no known law or rules governing what it can do or how it operates — is empowered to place American citizens on a list to be killed by the CIA, which (by some process nobody knows) eventually makes its way to the President, who is the final Decider.  It is difficult to describe the level of warped authoritarianism necessary to cause someone to lend their support to a twisted Star Chamber like that.”

The Star Chamber, an English court dating back to the middle ages, reportedly was named for the stars on the ceiling of the courtroom, located at Westminster Palace.  Over time, it grew increasingly powerful and corrupt.  By the 17^th century, under Charles I, it had become a vehicle for prosecuting political dissent.  The court’s procedures made it virtually impossible for defendants to get a fair hearing and served as a rubber stamp for the monarchy.

“Court sessions were held in secret, with no indictments, no right of appeal, no juries, and no witnesses. Evidence was presented in writing. Over time it evolved into a political weapon, a symbol of the misuse and abuse of power by the English monarchy and courts.”

The Star Chamber also punished religious dissent, ultimately driving the Puritans to seek refuge in North America’s wilderness. Their descendents would form a new nation and endow it with laws that prohibited Star Chamber abuses. Today, “star chamber” is a pejorative term used to describe any administrative body with “strict, arbitrary rulings and secretive proceedings” that “cast doubt on the legitimacy of the proceedings.”  Notwithstanding its infamous past, the Star Chamber appeals to government officials who abhor accountability.

The panel that authorized the killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki is the most public U.S. example of a star chamber–but it is far from the only one.  The federal government operates a network of star chamber courts administered by government agencies for the purpose of hearing appeals from military and civilian federal employees stripped of their security clearances. Many of those employees are whistleblowers who have disclosed government wrongdoing, thus implicating senior officials.  Senior officials use the star chambers to punish whistleblowers, to discredit their disclosures and to discourage other employees from exposing negligence, waste and corruption.  Existing whistleblower protection laws are helpless to protect federal employees with security clearances from agency reprisal.

Security clearance star chambers violate the U.S. Constitution’s due process protections by presidential order–Executive Order (E.O.) 12968.  These courts go by a variety of names.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Star Chamber is the “Personnel Security Review Board.” The Department of Defense (DOD) calls its star chamber the “Department of Hearings and Appeals.” Each federal agency interprets the executive order differently, and some—for example, USDA—actually provide less due process than E.O. 12968 allows.  All are offensive to modern notions of justice, but none have been held accountable.  Government officials argue that national security requires the suspension of due process; but, a close examination of the appeals process shows that the government’s claim is a fraud.

“Due process” is defined as “a fundamental, constitutional guarantee that all legal proceedings will be fair and that one will be given notice of the proceedings and an opportunity to be heard before the government acts to take away one’s life, liberty, or property.”  In addition, it is a guarantee that a law “shall not be unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious.”

The U.S. Constitution lists due process rights primarily in the ten amendments known as the Bill of Rights.  Amendment V states that no one may be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. “Amendment VI defines due process as “the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury; the right “to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”  Amendment VII applies those jury trial rights to civil cases as well as criminal cases.  Amendment XIV, adopted in 1868, guarantees equal treatment under the law.

By contrast, E.O. 12968 denies a federal employee the right to a public hearing (an important check on judicial corruption), the right to be confronted with witnesses against him, the right to present his own witnesses, and the right to an impartial jury. With these restrictions, the courts enable agencies to orchestrate a hearing’s outcome. An agency can freely smear an employee with hearsay and innuendo–even allegations from officials implicated in wrongdoing–secure in the knowledge that the employee’s attorney can never cross-examine the sources.  Agency officials also get to select the agency employees who will review the evidence—which must be written–and render a decision.

Adding insult to injury, federal agencies may further limit the amount of due process allowed.  For example, USDA’s appeals process arbitrarily limits the hearing to one hour, and allows the agency to provide only a “brief” statement of the charges (which may be impossibly vague) instead of the detailed explanation required by E.O. 12968.  One particularly Kafkaesque provision denies the employee any opportunity to appear before the panel that will evaluate his credibility and decide his fate.  The provision makes a mockery of the concept of jury trials by enabling panel members to render unfair decisions without having to look their victims in the face. The panel’s decision, USDA says, cannot be appealed.  In practice, even the pitifully thin due process described in USDA’s regulation have been denied; oversight and enforcement of the government’s star chambers being practically nonexistent.

Senior government officials would have us believe that national security is best served by allowing honest government employees to be railroaded out of their positions on the basis of unquestioned allegations from witnesses who may be lying to cover up corruption or neglect of national security threats.  This defies logic, as well as public policy established by courts over the years. Denying due process to federal employees is, moreover, hugely hypocritical, because employees of federal contractors—whose whistleblowing poses no direct threat to federal officials–are allowed significantly more due process rights.

Unlike USDA employees, employees of USDA contractors are permitted a public hearing, may cross-examine the Department’s witnesses against them, and may introduce witnesses of their own (See here and here).  An administrative judge, not a panel of laypersons, issues the decision, and the decision may be appealed to a board of three administrative judges.  Meanwhile, until a final decision is reached, a contractor employee retains access to classified information–unlike the federal employee, whose access is suspended.

A December 12, 2003 report issued by the Department of Defense (DoD) Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) Office acknowledges the absurdity of that disparity in the treatment of federal and contractor employees.

“Whether an individual is a contractor, a civilian, or a military employee, the DoD security clearance allows access to the same categories of information. Therefore, access requirements and the application of the adjudicative guidelines for DoD security clearances should be consistent regardless of the process through which the clearance is received.”

The OIG solicited comments from senior DoD officials on the disparate treatment described in its report. The Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence claimed “the report lacks clarity,” but would give no examples. The Deputy General Counsel slammed the report as “fundamentally flawed,” and also failed to provide examples. The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and the Deputy General Counsel alleged there is no “persuasive” argument or “rationale” for creating a single appeal process.  The Deputy General Counsel maintained that the current arrangement “appears to work well.”  It would have been nice if the OIG had pointed out that the support expressed by these officials for star chambers violates their oath to support and defend the Constitution.

In addition to violating the Constitutional due process rights of federal employees, the star chambers’ separate-and-unequal appeals process violates the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.  The disparate treatment of federal and contractor employees is neither logical nor consistent with common notions of fairness.  Depriving federal employees of due process “works well” mainly in hiding government wrongdoing.

Star Chamber abuses thwart accountability and silence whistleblowers, thus leaving the nation vulnerable to threats, foreign and domestic. Whistleblower cases like those of Franz Gayl and Thomas Drake illustrate the importance of whistleblowers to national security, and the extremes to which agencies will go to silence them. Gayl, a U.S. Marine Corps scientist, drew attention to DoD neglect of a battlefield request for urgent request potentially life-saving Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) troop carriers. His commendable service may soon be terminated if superiors get their way.  Drake, a computer specialist at the National Security Agency (NSA), angered supervisors by opposing the implementation of a computer program that violated privacy laws and was less efficient than another at intercepting terrorists.  Not satisfied with firing Drake and destroying his career, the government also tried, unsuccessfully, to convict him of espionage.

The refusal of federal department heads to provide a reasonable, lawful rationale for establishing star chambers indicates that the motivation is neither reasonable nor lawful.  Star Chamber courts deal in expediency, not justice.  They efficiently dispose of terrorism suspects and trustworthy public servants alike, and protect corruption in preference to the public.

Perhaps the greatest peril of star chambers is their effect on public trust and domestic stability.  The original Star Chamber’s abuses ended in a revolt by Parliament, which dissolved the court and freed its prisoners. A civil war followed, bringing an end to the king’s rule and, for awhile, the English monarchy–proving that the harder one grasps power, the more likely it is to crumble.

Linda Lewis is a policy analyst with degrees in emergency management and geosciences.  Her experience includes 13 years as a policy analyst and planner for the U.S. government.  During that time, she brought attention to serious deficiencies in government preparedness prior to the disasters that confirmed her analyses.  Those included emergency communications (9/11 terrorist attacks), federal assistance (hurricane Katrina) and decision making (Columbia shuttle disaster).

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In-Q-Tel was formed by the CIA in 1999 as a private, not-for-profit venture capital firm with the specific task of delivering technology to America’s intelligence community. Publicly, In-Q-Tel markets itself as an innovative way to leverage the power of the private sector by identifying key emerging technologies and providing companies with the funding to bring those technologies to market. In reality, however, what In-Q-Tel represents is a dangerous blurring of the lines between the public and private sectors in a way that makes it difficult to tell where the American intelligence community ends and the IT sector begins.

In-Q-Tel has generated a number of stories since its inception based on what can only be described as the “creepiness” factor of its investments in overtly Orwellian technologies.

This is our EyeOpener Report by James Corbett presenting documented facts and cases on the CIA’s privately owned venture capital firm In-Q-Tel, in which well-connected board members drawn from the private sector profit from the investments made with CIA funds that come from the taxpayer.

*The Transcript for this video is now available at Corbett Report: Click Here

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Mark Klein provides us with his personal account of the illegal spying apparatus installed at AT&T by the National Security Agency and his battle as a whistleblower to bring it to light. He talks about the difficulties in getting a reluctant media to report the story, the incredible betrayal by the L.A. Times, his role as a witness in a lawsuit brought against AT&T by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the alarming state of our civil liberties today, the need for vigilant activism, and more.

Mark Klein is a former AT&T technician who disclosed knowledge of his company’s cooperation with the United States National Security Agency (NSA) in installing network hardware to monitor and process American telecommunications. The subsequent media coverage became a major story in May 2006. In recognition of his actions, the Electronic Frontier Foundation picked Klein as one of the winners of its 2008 Pioneer Awards. Klein worked for AT&T as a technician for over 22 years, first in New York and then in California, before retiring in 2004. He is the author of Wiring Up The Big Brother Machine And Fighting It.

Here is our guest Mark Klein unplugged!

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This piece will attempt to analyze the US Government’s Warrantless Wiretap Program utilizing open source information including A.T.&T. Whistleblower Mark Klein’s EFF affidavit, podcasts by James Bamford and Russell Tice available on this site, and comparisons with similar surveillance networks currently in use in Great Britain and China. The rise of the Internet and the World Wide Web in the past thirty years has been touted as a mechanism of information freedom and open societies, a global clearinghouse for political and personal empowerment and a panacea against the forces of repression and censorship. What I will attempt to show in this piece is how those lofty goals remain largely unrealized and how governments, under the guise of “security” are, in fact, using the Internet as a new, overarching and suffocating surveillance state to monitor, compile and track the personal and private lives of virtually everyone who uses modern telecommunications in any form. I will attempt to demonstrate that, because of the erection of this surveillance regime, privacy of communications is essentially dead. I will also attempt to show how information gathered under this program can be used to populate private corporation databases and affect the general populace through credit reports, employment opportunities and the convergence of private and government databases.

Let me begin by defining some terms to help the reader understand the overall scope of Warrantless Wiretaps. These terms will give the reader an idea of the masses of data being monitored:

The basic building block circuit for our purposes is called a DS-3. Each DS-3 contains 28 T-1s, each containing 24 voice channels. So 1 DS-3 equals 24 times 28 or 672 voice channels. These DS-3s are multiplexed to the Optical Channel level and have a numerical value of 1. Therefore, an Optical Channel or OC-3 circuit contains 3 DS-3s capacity or 2016 voice channels. An OC-12 circuit contains 12 DS-3s or 8064 voice channels; an OC-48 circuit contains 48 DS-3s or 32,556 voice channels. These circuits are multiplexed to an OC-192 DWDM (Dense Wave Division Multiplex) level for long distance transport. What the last term means is anywhere from 24 to 36 OC-192 (192 DS-3s) modulated on a single fiber for long distance transport. So a single optic fiber can carry almost 5,000,000 individual phone channels at once. Most single mode fiber cables contain between 50 and 100 individual fibers providing a transmit and receive path for 25-50 OC-192 DWDM circuits. I am personally certified on equipment up to and including the OC-192 DWDM level.

Now we turn to Mark Klein’s EFF affidavit in the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s lawsuit, Hepting v A.T.&T. :

In it, Klein describes his tasks as an A.T.&T. data communications technician in general terms as well as a project he was tasked to perform at the A.T.&T. Central Office located in 611 Folsom St., San Francisco. He describes how he was charged with the installation, test and turn-up of optical hybrid splitters to tap off optical signals from an array of A.T.&T. and other OCC (Other Common Carrier) circuits for transport and analysis within secret rooms installed  in Central Offices in San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles and Seattle, among others, for the National Security Agency. Inside these rooms, the traffic was routed through a Semantic Traffic Analyzer provided by Narus, an Israeli-owned company affiliated with Israel’s counterpart agency to the NSA, as documented by James Bamford in his podcast interview available on this site. It was also routed to the main NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, MD where it was stored for further data mining as part of the WWP. The splitter circuit diagrams are included on page 24 of the affidavit with the circuit cutover diagram visible on page 15. Of particular interest to me is the engineering document on page 17 of his affidavit, listing the Other Common Carriers leasing A.T.&T. facilities whose circuits and customers were also being monitored. It reads like a Who’s Who of major telecommunications IXCs (Inter-Exchange Carriers) including Qwest, Level3, Cable & Wireless, Global Crossing and a host of others. It also lists the size of each circuit routed to the NSA by it’s OC-x number as detailed above. Since Klein’s declaration only spotlights the West Coast central offices affected by this nationwide program, it is fair to assume it was also being carried out in corresponding offices on the East Coast as well.

The official justification offered by both the Bush and Obama administrations is that these circuits were only used for overseas traffic and, therefore, within the NSA’s lawful mandate to monitor overseas communications. The fallacy of that argument is that all the offices mentioned, while having some overseas circuits originating from them, primarily contained domestic telecommunications traffic. If the NSA wished to stay within its official mandate, this program could have been accomplished with far less cost by placing the NSA rooms with their equipment at overseas cable terminal offices such as the Transpacific Cable Terminal at Los Osos, near Morro Bay, CA.

Both Bamford and Tice, in their podcast interviews, speak of the two massive new NSA data storage facilities being built in Utah and Texas. Those locations are where all this information will be stored once they come online. Now consider the outsourcing of intelligence work to private contractors and security firms like CACI, Choicepoint and others who specialize in data mining from public sources as well and you begin to see the scope and impact of this program on ordinary citizens. Consider, also, Bamford and Tice’s revelations of a parallel National Telecommunications Traffic Control Center being constructed at Fort Meade identical to A.T.&T.‘s National Traffic Control Center in Bedminster, NJ. The eventual merging and sharing of this information between government and corporate entities is almost inevitable. Remember, as Benito Mussolini defined it:

“Fascism is the convergence of governmental and corporate power.”

So the questions I have are this.

1. Why is such an overarching, intrusive, draconian wiretap program necessary?

2. What mechanisms are there in place to prevent government-sourced private information from being shared with corporate entities?

3. Is the NSA positioning itself to take control of all telecommunications in the event of a national emergency? 

4. What national emergency might provide a trigger mechanism for the assumption of such control?