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National Security Agency Is Spying On All American Who Use The Internet and Telephone System and They Collect and Store All Your Communications — Includes Trump and Associates — No Warrant Required If President Obama Designates You A Target — Congress Is Enabling The Turnkey Two Party Tyranny — Warrentless Searches — Congress Does Nothing To Stop It! — Videos
Posted on March 17, 2017. Filed under: American History, Articles, Blogroll, Books, British History, Business, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Communications, Computers, Computers, Congress, conservatives, Constitution, Corruption, Crime, Crisis, Data, Data Storage, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Demographics, Documentary, European History, External Hard Drives, External Hard Drives, Faith, Family, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Federal Communications Commission, Federal Government, Friends, government spending, Heroes, history, Illegal, Immigration, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), IRS, Islam, Islam, Law, Legal, liberty, Life, Links, Literacy, media, Middle East, National Security Agency (NSA), National Security Agency (NSA_, Non-Fiction, People, Philosophy, Photos, Police, Politics, Press, Programming, Psychology, Radio, Radio, Rants, Raves, Raymond Thomas Pronk, Regulations, Religion, Security, Sociology, Space, Spying, Strategy, Supreme Court, Systems, Talk Radio, Taxation, Taxes, Technology, Television, Terrorism, Video, Wahhabism, War, Wealth, Welfare, Wisdom, Writing | Tags: Bill Binney, Bill of Rights, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Congress, Corruption, Crimes, Felonies, Fourth Amendment, Internet, Mark Levin, National Security Agency (NSA), President Donald J. Trump, Sean Hannity, Secret Surveillance Spying Security State (S5), Signals Intelligence, Turnkey Tyranny, Tyranny, Warrant less Searches |
Obama launched TWO criminal investigations on Trump׃ no evidence found
The O'Reilly Factor March 18, 2017 Fox News Pres Trump March 18, 2017
Edward Snowden Vault 7 " Wikileaks" Obama Targeting Trump Tower Live from Russia Stream 14 03 2017
Former NSA Employee, Bill Binney, Breaks Silence Confirms Trump Wiretapping claims
NSA WHISTLEBLOWER SAYS TRUMP WAS WIRETAPPED AND MONITORED
NSA Whistleblower William Binney on The Laura Ingraham Show (3/10/2017)
Sean Hannity talks to Mark Levin , Jay Sekulow & Bill Binney about POTUS wiretapping claims
*BOMBSHELL* SEAN HANNITY, WILLIAM BINNEY and TONY SHAFFER (3/8/17) – TALK VAULT 7
Whistleblower: NSA Still Collecting Data On Every U.S. Citizen
william binney ex nsa intelligence agent discusses trump leaks with lou dobbs
Sharyl Attkisson: Presidents CAN authorize ILLEGAL surveillance and nobody would ever know!
Malzberg | Sharyl Attkisson to discuss her new book "Stonewalled" | Part 1
[youtube-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjAoVEhlrPc]
Wyden: No to warrantless searches by the FBI through National Security Letters
NSA Whistleblower: Everyone in US under virtual surveillance, all info stored, no matter the post
William Binney – The Government is Profiling You (The NSA is Spying on You)
Taking a Look at the NSA's Massive Data Center
NSA's Largest Spy Center Located in Utah (What you need to know)
NSA Whistleblower William Binney: The Future of FREEDOM
'State of Surveillance' with Edward Snowden and Shane Smith (FULL EPISODE)
Edward Snowden Full Interview on Trump, Petraeus, & Having 'No Regrets'
DOCUMENTARY: Edward Snowden – Terminal F (2015)
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'
NSA paying US Companies hundreds of millions of dollars for access to data
"You're Being Watched": Edward Snowden Emerges as Source Behind Explosive Revelations of NSA Spying
Does the NSA Record Phone Calls? Glenn Greenwald on Warrentless Domestic Surveillance (2007)
The NSA warrantless surveillance controversy (AKA "Warrantless Wiretapping") concerns surveillance of persons within the United States during the collection of foreign intelligence by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as part of the war on terror. Under this program, referred to by the Bush administration as the "terrorist surveillance program", part of the broader President's Surveillance Program, the NSA was authorized by executive order to monitor, without search warrants, the phone calls, Internet activity (Web, e-mail, etc.), text messaging, and other communication involving any party believed by the NSA to be outside the U.S., even if the other end of the communication lies within the U.S. Critics, however, claimed that it was in an effort to attempt to silence critics of the Bush Administration and their handling of several hot button issues during its tenure. Under public pressure, the Bush administration ceased the warrantless wiretapping program in January 2007 and returned review of surveillance to the FISA court. Subsequently, in 2008 Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which relaxed some of the original FISA court requirements.
During the Obama Administration, the NSA has officially continued operating under the new FISA guidelines. However, in April 2009 officials at the United States Department of Justice acknowledged that the NSA had engaged in "overcollection" of domestic communications in excess of the FISA court's authority, but claimed that the acts were unintentional and had since been rectified.
All wiretapping of American citizens by the National Security Agency requires a warrant from a three-judge court set up under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. After the 9/11 attacks, Congress passed the Patriot Act, which granted the President broad powers to fight a war against terrorism. The George W. Bush administration used these powers to bypass the FISA court and directed the NSA to spy directly on al Qaeda in a new NSA electronic surveillance program. Reports at the time indicate that an "apparently accidental" "glitch" resulted in the interception of communications that were purely domestic in nature.[5] This action was challenged by a number of groups, including Congress, as unconstitutional.
The exact scope of the program is not known, but the NSA is or was provided total, unsupervised access to all fiber-optic communications going between some of the nation's largest telecommunication companies' major interconnected locations, including phone conversations, email, web browsing, and corporate private network traffic.[6] Critics said that such "domestic" intercepts required FISC authorization under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.[7] The Bush administration maintained that the authorized intercepts are not domestic but rather foreign intelligence integral to the conduct of war and that the warrant requirements of FISA were implicitly superseded by the subsequent passage of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF).[8] FISA makes it illegal to intentionally engage in electronic surveillance under appearance of an official act or to disclose or use information obtained by electronic surveillance under appearance of an official act knowing that it was not authorized by statute; this is punishable with a fine of up to $10,000 or up to five years in prison, or both.[9] In addition, the Wiretap Act prohibits any person from illegally intercepting, disclosing, using or divulging phone calls or electronic communications; this is punishable with a fine or up to five years in prison, or both.[10]
After an article about the program, (which had been code-named Stellar Wind), was published in The New York Times on December 16, 2005, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales confirmed its existence.[11][12][13] The Times had posted the exclusive story on their website the night before, after learning that the Bush administration was considering seeking a Pentagon-Papers-style court injunction to block its publication.[14] Critics of The Times have alleged that executive editor Bill Keller had withheld the story from publication since before the 2004 Presidential election, and that the story that was ultimately published by The Times was essentially the same as reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau had submitted in 2004.[15] In a December 2008 interview with Newsweek, former Justice Department employee Thomas Tamm revealed himself to be the initial whistle-blower to The Times. The FBI began investigating leaks about the program in 2005, with 25 agents and 5 prosecutors on the case.
FBI's Patriot Act Abuse of National Security Letters and illegal NSA spying
If you think you can handle the truth, well here it is folks
"NSA" redirects here. For other uses, see NSA (disambiguation) and National Security Agency (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with NASA or National Security Council.
Seal of the National Security Agency
Flag of the National Security Agency
NSA Headquarters, Fort Meade, Maryland
November 4, 1952; 64 years ago[1]
Armed Forces Security Agency
Fort Meade, Maryland, U.S.
39°6′32″N 76°46′17″WCoordinates: 39°6′32″N 76°46′17″W
"Defending Our Nation. Securing The Future."
Classified (30,000–40,000 estimate)[2][3][4][5]
Classified (estimated $10.8 billion, 2013)[6][7]
Agency executives
Admiral Michael S. Rogers, U.S. Navy, Director of the National Security Agency
Richard Ledgett, Deputy Director of the National Security Agency
United States Department of Defense
www.nsa.gov
National Security Agencysurveillance
Map of global NSA data collection
Programs[hide]
Upstream collection
Main Core
ThinThread
OAKSTAR
STORMBREW
Genoa II
Total Information Awareness
President's Surveillance Program
Terrorist Surveillance Program
Dropmire
MonsterMind (alleged)
Databases, tools etc.
PINWALE
MAINWAY
TRAFFICTHIEF
DISHFIRE
XKeyscore
ICREACH
BOUNDLESSINFORMANT
GCHQ collaboration
Legislation[show]
Institutions[show]
Lawsuits[show]
Whistleblowers[show]
Publication[show]
Related[show]
Collaboration[show]
The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence organization of the United States federal government responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). NSA is concurrently charged with protection of U.S. government communications and information systems against penetration and network warfare.[8][9] Although many of NSA's programs rely on "passive" electronic collection, the agency is authorized to accomplish its mission through active clandestine means,[10] among which are physically bugging electronic systems[11] and allegedly engaging in sabotage through subversive software.[12][13] Moreover, NSA maintains physical presence in a large number of countries across the globe, where its Special Collection Service (SCS) inserts eavesdropping devices in difficult-to-reach places. SCS collection tactics allegedly encompass "close surveillance, burglary, wiretapping, breaking and entering".[14][15]
Unlike the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), both of which specialize primarily in foreign human espionage, NSA does not unilaterally conduct human-source intelligence gathering, despite often being portrayed so in popular culture. Instead, NSA is entrusted with assistance to and coordination of SIGINT elements at other government organizations, which are prevented by law from engaging in such activities without the approval of the NSA via the Defense Secretary.[16] As part of these streamlining responsibilities, the agency has a co-located organization called the Central Security Service (CSS), which was created to facilitate cooperation between NSA and other U.S. military cryptanalysis components. Additionally, the NSA Director simultaneously serves as the Commander of the United States Cyber Command and as Chief of the Central Security Service.
Originating as a unit to decipher coded communications in World War II, it was officially formed as the NSA by President Harry S. Truman in 1952. Since then, it has become one of the largest U.S. intelligence organizations in terms of personnel and budget,[6][17] operating as part of the Department of Defense and simultaneously reporting to the Director of National Intelligence.
NSA surveillance has been a matter of political controversy on several occasions, such as its spying on anti-Vietnam-war leaders or economic espionage. In 2013, the extent of some of the NSA's secret surveillance programs was revealed to the public by Edward Snowden. According to the leaked documents, the NSA intercepts the communications of over a billion people worldwide, many of whom are United States citizens, and tracks the movement of hundreds of millions of people using cellphones. Internationally, research has pointed to the NSA's ability to surveil the domestic Internet traffic of foreign countries through "boomerang routing".[18]
Army predecessor
The origins of the National Security Agency can be traced back to April 28, 1917, three weeks after the U.S. Congress declared war on Germany in World War I. A code and cipher decryption unit was established as the Cable and Telegraph Section which was also known as the Cipher Bureau. It was headquartered in Washington, D.C. and was part of the war effort under the executive branch without direct Congressional authorization. During the course of the war it was relocated in the army's organizational chart several times. On July 5, 1917, Herbert O. Yardley was assigned to head the unit. At that point, the unit consisted of Yardley and two civilian clerks. It absorbed the navy's cryptoanalysis functions in July 1918. World War I ended on November 11, 1918, and MI-8 moved to New York City on May 20, 1919, where it continued intelligence activities as the Code Compilation Company under the direction of Yardley.[19][20]
Black Chamber
Western Union allowed MI-8 to monitor telegraphic communications passing through the company's wires until 1929.[21]
MI-8 also operated the so-called "Black Chamber".[22] The Black Chamber was located on East 37th Street in Manhattan. Its purpose was to crack the communications codes of foreign governments. Jointly supported by the State Department and the War Department, the chamber persuaded Western Union, the largest U.S. telegram company, to allow government officials to monitor private communications passing through the company's wires.[23]
Other "Black Chambers" were also found in Europe. They were established by the French and British governments to read the letters of targeted individuals, employing a variety of techniques to surreptitiously open, copy, and reseal correspondence before forwarding it to unsuspecting recipients.[24]
Despite the American Black Chamber's initial successes, it was shut down in 1929 by U.S. Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson, who defended his decision by stating: "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail".[21]
World War II and its aftermath
During World War II, the Signal Security Agency (SSA) was created to intercept and decipher the communications of the Axis powers.[25] When the war ended, the SSA was reorganized as the Army Security Agency (ASA), and it was placed under the leadership of the Director of Military Intelligence.[25]
On May 20, 1949, all cryptologic activities were centralized under a national organization called the Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA).[25]This organization was originally established within the U.S. Department of Defense under the command of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.[26] The AFSA was tasked to direct Department of Defense communications and electronic intelligence activities, except those of U.S. military intelligence units.[26] However, the AFSA was unable to centralize communications intelligence and failed to coordinate with civilian agencies that shared its interests such as the Department of State, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).[26] In December 1951, President Harry S. Truman ordered a panel to investigate how AFSA had failed to achieve its goals. The results of the investigation led to improvements and its redesignation as the National Security Agency.[27]
The agency was formally established by Truman in a memorandum of October 24, 1952, that revised National Security Council Intelligence Directive (NSCID) 9.[28] Since President Truman's memo was a classified document,[28] the existence of the NSA was not known to the public at that time. Due to its ultra-secrecy the U.S. intelligence community referred to the NSA as "No Such Agency".[29]
Main articles: Project MINARET and NESTOR (encryption)
In the 1960s, the NSA played a key role in expanding America's commitment to the Vietnam War by providing evidence of a North Vietnamese attack on the American destroyer USS Maddox during the Gulf of Tonkin incident.[30]
A secret operation, code-named "MINARET", was set up by the NSA to monitor the phone communications of Senators Frank Church and Howard Baker, as well as major civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr., and prominent U.S. journalists and athletes who criticized the Vietnam War.[31] However, the project turned out to be controversial, and an internal review by the NSA concluded that its Minaret program was "disreputable if not outright illegal".[31]
The NSA mounted a major effort to secure tactical communications among U.S. forces during the war with mixed success. The NESTOR family of compatible secure voice systems it developed was widely deployed during the Vietnam War, with about 30,000 NESTOR sets produced. However a variety of technical and operational problems limited their use, allowing the North Vietnamese to exploit intercepted U.S. communications.[32]:Vol I, p.79
Church Committee hearings
Further information: Watergate scandal and Church Committee
In the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, a congressional hearing in 1975 led by Sen. Frank Church[33] revealed that the NSA, in collaboration with Britain's SIGINT intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), had routinely intercepted the international communications of prominent anti-Vietnam war leaders such as Jane Fonda and Dr. Benjamin Spock.[34] Following the resignation of President Richard Nixon, there were several investigations of suspected misuse of FBI, CIA and NSA facilities.[35] Senator Frank Church uncovered previously unknown activity,[35]such as a CIA plot (ordered by the administration of President John F. Kennedy) to assassinate Fidel Castro.[36] The investigation also uncovered NSA's wiretaps on targeted American citizens.[37]
After the Church Committee hearings, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 was passed into law. This was designed to limit the practice of mass surveillance in the United States.[35]
From 1980s to 1990s
In 1986, the NSA intercepted the communications of the Libyan government during the immediate aftermath of the Berlin discotheque bombing. The White House asserted that the NSA interception had provided "irrefutable" evidence that Libya was behind the bombing, which U.S. President Ronald Reagan cited as a justification for the 1986 United States bombing of Libya.[38][39]
In 1999, a multi-year investigation by the European Parliament highlighted the NSA's role in economic espionage in a report entitled 'Development of Surveillance Technology and Risk of Abuse of Economic Information'.[40] That year, the NSA founded the NSA Hall of Honor, a memorial at the National Cryptologic Museum in Fort Meade, Maryland.[41] The memorial is a, "tribute to the pioneers and heroes who have made significant and long-lasting contributions to American cryptology".[41] NSA employees must be retired for more than fifteen years to qualify for the memorial.[41]
NSA's infrastructure deteriorated in the 1990s as defense budget cuts resulted in maintenance deferrals. On January 24, 2000, NSA headquarters suffered a total network outage for three days caused by an overloaded network. Incoming traffic was successfully stored on agency servers, but it could not be directed and processed. The agency carried out emergency repairs at a cost of $3 million to get the system running again. (Some incoming traffic was also directed instead to Britain's GCHQ for the time being.) Director Michael Hayden called the outage a "wake-up call" for the need to invest in the agency's infrastructure.[42]
After Osama bin Laden moved to Afghanistan in the 1980s, the NSA recorded all of his phone calls via satellite, logging over 2,000 minutes of conversation[43]
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the NSA created new IT systems to deal with the flood of information from new technologies like the Internet and cellphones. ThinThread contained advanced data mining capabilities. It also had a "privacy mechanism"; surveillance was stored encrypted; decryption required a warrant. The research done under this program may have contributed to the technology used in later systems. ThinThread was cancelled when Michael Hayden chose Trailblazer, which did not include ThinThread's privacy system.[44]
Trailblazer Project ramped up in 2002. SAIC, Boeing, CSC, IBM, and Litton worked on it. Some NSA whistleblowers complained internally about major problems surrounding Trailblazer. This led to investigations by Congress and the NSA and DoD Inspectors General. The project was cancelled in early 2004. Several whistleblowers were later arrested and charged with violating federal espionage laws.
Turbulence started in 2005. It was developed in small, inexpensive "test" pieces, rather than one grand plan like Trailblazer. It also included offensive cyber-warfare capabilities, like injecting malware into remote computers. Congress criticized Turbulence in 2007 for having similar bureaucratic problems as Trailblazer.[45] It was to be a realization of information processing at higher speeds in cyberspace.[46]
Global surveillance disclosures
Global surveillance
STONEGHOST
Frenchelon
DCSN
Boundless Informant
SORM
Five Eyes
DGSE
Michael S. Rogers
Keith Alexander
Russ Tice
The Doughnut
Menwith Hill
Pine Gap
Southern Cross Cable
Bad Aibling Station
Dagger Complex
UKUSA Agreement
USA Freedom Act
FISA amendments
Data Retention Directive
Data Protection Directive
Proposed changes
FISA Improvements Act
Other proposals
Culture of fear
SIGINT
Call detail record
Surveillance issues in smart cities
Intelligence agency
Stop Watching Us
Mass surveillance portal
Main article: Global surveillance disclosures (2013–present)
The massive extent of the NSA's spying, both foreign and domestic, was revealed to the public in a series of detailed disclosures of internal NSA documents beginning in June 2013. Most of the disclosures were leaked by former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden.
Scope of surveillance
It was revealed that the NSA intercepts telephone and Internet communications of over a billion people worldwide, seeking information on terrorism as well as foreign politics, economics[47] and "commercial secrets".[48] In a declassified document it was revealed that 17,835 phone lines were on an improperly permitted "alert list" from 2006 to 2009 in breach of compliance, which tagged these phone lines for daily monitoring.[49][50][51] Eleven percent of these monitored phone lines met the agency's legal standard for "reasonably articulable suspicion" (RAS).[49][52]
A dedicated unit of the NSA locates targets for the CIA for extrajudicial assassination in the Middle East.[53] The NSA has also spied extensively on the European Union, the United Nations and numerous governments including allies and trading partners in Europe, South America and Asia.[54][55]
The NSA tracks the locations of hundreds of millions of cellphones per day, allowing it to map people's movements and relationships in detail.[56]It reportedly has access to all communications made via Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, YouTube, AOL, Skype, Apple and Paltalk,[57] and collects hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal email and instant messaging accounts each year.[58] It has also managed to weaken much of the encryption used on the Internet (by collaborating with, coercing or otherwise infiltrating numerous technology companies), so that the majority of Internet privacy is now vulnerable to the NSA and other attackers.[59][60]
Domestically, the NSA collects and stores metadata records of phone calls,[61] including over 120 million US Verizon subscribers,[62] as well as Internet communications,[57] relying on a secret interpretation of the Patriot Act whereby the entirety of US communications may be considered "relevant" to a terrorism investigation if it is expected that even a tiny minority may relate to terrorism.[63] The NSA supplies foreign intercepts to the DEA, IRS and other law enforcement agencies, who use these to initiate criminal investigations. Federal agents are then instructed to "recreate" the investigative trail via parallel construction.[64]
The NSA also spies on influential Muslims to obtain information that could be used to discredit them, such as their use of pornography. The targets, both domestic and abroad, are not suspected of any crime but hold religious or political views deemed "radical" by the NSA.[65]
Although NSA's surveillance activities are controversial, government agencies and private enterprises have common needs, and sometimes cooperate at subtle and complex technical levels. Big data is becoming more advantageous, justifying the cost of required computer hardware, and social media lead the trend. The interests of NSA and Silicon Valley began to converge as advances in computer storage technology drastically reduced the costs of storing enormous amounts of data and at the same time the value of the data for use in consumer marketing began to rise. On the other hand, social media sites are growing as voluntary data mining operations on a scale that rivals or exceeds anything the government could attempt on its own.[66]
According to a report in The Washington Post in July 2014, relying on information provided by Snowden, 90% of those placed under surveillance in the U.S. are ordinary Americans, and are not the intended targets. The newspaper said it had examined documents including emails, text messages, and online accounts that support the claim.[67]
Legal accountability
Despite President Obama's claims that these programs have congressional oversight, members of Congress were unaware of the existence of these NSA programs or the secret interpretation of the Patriot Act, and have consistently been denied access to basic information about them.[68] Obama has also claimed that there are legal checks in place to prevent inappropriate access of data and that there have been no examples of abuse;[69] however, the secret FISC court charged with regulating the NSA's activities is, according to its chief judge, incapable of investigating or verifying how often the NSA breaks even its own secret rules.[70] It has since been reported that the NSA violated its own rules on data access thousands of times a year, many of these violations involving large-scale data interceptions;[71] and that NSA officers have even used data intercepts to spy on love interests.[72] The NSA has "generally disregarded the special rules for disseminating United States person information" by illegally sharing its intercepts with other law enforcement agencies.[73] A March 2009 opinion of the FISC court, released by court order, states that protocols restricting data queries had been "so frequently and systemically violated that it can be fairly said that this critical element of the overall … regime has never functioned effectively."[74][75] In 2011 the same court noted that the "volume and nature" of the NSA's bulk foreign Internet intercepts was "fundamentally different from what the court had been led to believe".[73] Email contact lists (including those of US citizens) are collected at numerous foreign locations to work around the illegality of doing so on US soil.[58]
Legal opinions on the NSA's bulk collection program have differed. In mid-December 2013, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon ruled that the "almost-Orwellian" program likely violates the Constitution, and wrote, "I cannot imagine a more 'indiscriminate' and 'arbitrary invasion' than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval. Surely, such a program infringes on 'that degree of privacy' that the Founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment. Indeed, I have little doubt that the author of our Constitution, James Madison, who cautioned us to beware 'the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power,' would be aghast."[76]
Later that month, U.S. District Judge William Pauley ruled that the NSA's collection of telephone records is legal and valuable in the fight against terrorism. In his opinion, he wrote, "a bulk telephony metadata collection program [is] a wide net that could find and isolate gossamer contacts among suspected terrorists in an ocean of seemingly disconnected data" and noted that a similar collection of data prior to 9/11 might have prevented the attack.[77]
An October 2014 United Nations report condemned mass surveillance by the United States and other countries as violating multiple international treaties and conventions that guarantee core privacy rights.[78]
Official responses
On March 20, 2013 the Director of National Intelligence, Lieutenant General James Clapper, testified before Congress that the NSA does not wittingly collect any kind of data on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans, but he retracted this in June after details of the PRISM program were published, and stated instead that meta-data of phone and Internet traffic are collected, but no actual message contents.[79] This was corroborated by the NSA Director, General Keith Alexander, before it was revealed that the XKeyscore program collects the contents of millions of emails from US citizens without warrant, as well as "nearly everything a user does on the Internet". Alexander later admitted that "content" is collected, but stated that it is simply stored and never analyzed or searched unless there is "a nexus to al-Qaida or other terrorist groups".[69]
Regarding the necessity of these NSA programs, Alexander stated on June 27 that the NSA's bulk phone and Internet intercepts had been instrumental in preventing 54 terrorist "events", including 13 in the US, and in all but one of these cases had provided the initial tip to "unravel the threat stream".[80] On July 31 NSA Deputy Director John Inglis conceded to the Senate that these intercepts had not been vital in stopping any terrorist attacks, but were "close" to vital in identifying and convicting four San Diego men for sending US$8,930 to Al-Shabaab, a militia that conducts terrorism in Somalia.[81][82][83]
The U.S. government has aggressively sought to dismiss and challenge Fourth Amendment cases raised against it, and has granted retroactive immunity to ISPs and telecoms participating in domestic surveillance.[84][85] The U.S. military has acknowledged blocking access to parts of The Guardian website for thousands of defense personnel across the country,[86][87] and blocking the entire Guardian website for personnel stationed throughout Afghanistan, the Middle East, and South Asia.[88]
Michael S. Rogers, the director of the NSA.
The NSA is led by the Director of the National Security Agency (DIRNSA), who also serves as Chief of the Central Security Service (CHCSS) and Commander of the United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) and is the highest-ranking military official of these organizations. He is assisted by a Deputy Director, who is the highest-ranking civilian within the NSA/CSS.
NSA also has an Inspector General, head of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), a General Counsel, head of the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) and a Director of Compliance, who is head of the Office of the Director of Compliance (ODOC).[89]
Unlike other intelligence organizations such as CIA or DIA, NSA has always been particularly reticent concerning its internal organizational structure.
As of the mid-1990s, the National Security Agency was organized into five Directorates:
The Operations Directorate, which was responsible for SIGINT collection and processing.
The Technology and Systems Directorate, which develops new technologies for SIGINT collection and processing.
The Information Systems Security Directorate, which was responsible for NSA's communications and information security missions.
The Plans, Policy and Programs Directorate, which provided staff support and general direction for the Agency.
The Support Services Directorate, which provided logistical and administrative support activities.[90]
Each of these directorates consisted of several groups or elements, designated by a letter. There were for example the A Group, which was responsible for all SIGINT operations against the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and G Group, which was responsible for SIGINT related to all non-communist countries. These groups were divided in units designated by an additional number, like unit A5 for breaking Soviet codes, and G6, being the office for the Middle East, North Africa, Cuba, Central and South America.[91][92]
As of 2013, NSA has about a dozen directorates, which are designated by a letter, although not all of them are publicly known. The directorates are divided in divisions and units starting with the letter of the parent directorate, followed by a number for the division, the sub-unit or a sub-sub-unit.
The main elements of the organizational structure of the NSA are:[93]
F – Directorate only known from unit F6, the Special Collection Service (SCS), which is a joint program created by CIA and NSA in 1978 to facilitate clandestine activities such as bugging computers throughout the world, using the expertise of both agencies.[94]
G – Directorate only known from unit G112, the office that manages the Senior Span platform, attached to the U2 spy planes.[95]
I – Information Assurance Directorate (IAD), which ensures availability, integrity, authentication, confidentiality, and non-repudiation of national security and telecommunications and information systems (national security systems).
J – Directorate only known from unit J2, the Cryptologic Intelligence Unit
L – Installation and Logistics
M – Human Resources
Q – Security and Counterintelligence
R – Research Directorate, which conducts research on signals intelligence and on information assurance for the U.S. Government.[96]
S – Signals Intelligence Directorate (SID), which is responsible for the collection, analysis, production and dissemination of signals intelligence. This directorate is led by a director and a deputy director. The SID consists of the following divisions:
S1 – Customer Relations
S2 – Analysis and Production Centers, with the following so-called Product Lines:
S2A: South Asia, S2B: China and Korea, S2C: International Security, S2E: Middle East/Asia, S2F: International Crime, S2G: Counter-proliferation, S2H: Russia, S2I: Counter-terrorism, S2J: Weapons and Space, S2T: Current Threats
S3 – Data Acquisition, with these divisions for the main collection programs:
S31 – Cryptanalysis and Exploitation Services (CES)
S32 – Tailored Access Operations (TAO), which hacks into foreign computers to conduct cyber-espionage and reportedly is "the largest and arguably the most important component of the NSA's huge Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) Directorate, consisting of over 1,000 military and civilian computer hackers, intelligence analysts, targeting specialists, computer hardware and software designers, and electrical engineers."[97]
S33 – Global Access Operations (GAO), which is responsible for intercepts from satellites and other international SIGINT platforms.[98] A tool which details and maps the information collected by this unit is code-named Boundless Informant.
S34 – Collections Strategies and Requirements Center
S35 – Special Source Operations (SSO), which is responsible for domestic and compartmented collection programs, like for example the PRISM program.[98] Special Source Operations is also mentioned in connection to the FAIRVIEW collection program.[99]
T – Technical Directorate (TD)
Directorate for Education and Training
Directorate for Corporate Leadership
Foreign Affairs Directorate, which acts as liaison with foreign intelligence services, counter-intelligence centers and the UKUSA-partners.
Acquisitions and Procurement Directorate
Information Sharing Services (ISS), led by a chief and a deputy chief.[100]
In the year 2000, a leadership team was formed, consisting of the Director, the Deputy Director and the Directors of the Signals Intelligence (SID), the Information Assurance (IAD) and the Technical Directorate (TD). The chiefs of other main NSA divisions became associate directors of the senior leadership team.[101]
After president George W. Bush initiated the President's Surveillance Program (PSP) in 2001, the NSA created a 24-hour Metadata Analysis Center (MAC), followed in 2004 by the Advanced Analysis Division (AAD), with the mission of analyzing content, Internet metadata and telephone metadata. Both units were part of the Signals Intelligence Directorate.[102]
A 2016 proposal would combine the Signals Intelligence Directorate with the Information Assurance Directorate into a Directorate of Operations.[103]
Watch centers
The NSA maintains at least two watch centers:
National Security Operations Center (NSOC), which is the NSA's current operations center and focal point for time-sensitive SIGINT reporting for the United States SIGINT System (USSS). This center was established in 1968 as the National SIGINT Watch Center (NSWC) and renamed into National SIGINT Operations Center (NSOC) in 1973. This "nerve center of the NSA" got its current name in 1996.[104]
NSA/CSS Threat Operations Center (NTOC), which is the primary NSA/CSS partner for Department of Homeland Security response to cyber incidents. The NTOC establishes real-time network awareness and threat characterization capabilities to forecast, alert, and attribute malicious activity and enable the coordination of Computer Network Operations. The NTOC was established in 2004 as a joint Information Assurance and Signals Intelligence project.[105]
The number of NSA employees is officially classified[4] but there are several sources providing estimates. In 1961, NSA had 59,000 military and civilian employees, which grew to 93,067 in 1969, of which 19,300 worked at the headquarters at Fort Meade. In the early 1980s NSA had roughly 50,000 military and civilian personnel. By 1989 this number had grown again to 75,000, of which 25,000 worked at the NSA headquarters. Between 1990 and 1995 the NSA's budget and workforce were cut by one third, which led to a substantial loss of experience.[106]
In 2012, the NSA said more than 30,000 employees worked at Fort Meade and other facilities.[2] In 2012, John C. Inglis, the deputy director, said that the total number of NSA employees is "somewhere between 37,000 and one billion" as a joke,[4] and stated that the agency is "probably the biggest employer of introverts."[4] In 2013 Der Spiegel stated that the NSA had 40,000 employees.[5] More widely, it has been described as the world's largest single employer of mathematicians.[107] Some NSA employees form part of the workforce of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the agency that provides the NSA with satellite signals intelligence.
As of 2013 about 1,000 system administrators work for the NSA.[108]
The NSA received criticism early on in 1960 after two agents had defected to the Soviet Union. Investigations by the House Un-American Activities Committee and a special subcommittee of the United States House Committee on Armed Services revealed severe cases of ignorance in personnel security regulations, prompting the former personnel director and the director of security to step down and leading to the adoption of stricter security practices.[109] Nonetheless, security breaches reoccurred only a year later when in an issue of Izvestia of July 23, 1963, a former NSA employee published several cryptologic secrets.
The very same day, an NSA clerk-messenger committed suicide as ongoing investigations disclosed that he had sold secret information to the Soviets on a regular basis. The reluctance of Congressional houses to look into these affairs had prompted a journalist to write, "If a similar series of tragic blunders occurred in any ordinary agency of Government an aroused public would insist that those responsible be officially censured, demoted, or fired." David Kahn criticized the NSA's tactics of concealing its doings as smug and the Congress' blind faith in the agency's right-doing as shortsighted, and pointed out the necessity of surveillance by the Congress to prevent abuse of power.[109]
Edward Snowden's leaking of the existence of PRISM in 2013 caused the NSA to institute a "two-man rule", where two system administrators are required to be present when one accesses certain sensitive information.[108] Snowden claims he suggested such a rule in 2009.[110]
Polygraphin
Defense Security Service (DSS) polygraph brochure given to NSA applicants
The NSA conducts polygraph tests of employees. For new employees, the tests are meant to discover enemy spies who are applying to the NSA and to uncover any information that could make an applicant pliant to coercion.[111] As part of the latter, historically EPQs or "embarrassing personal questions" about sexual behavior had been included in the NSA polygraph.[111] The NSA also conducts five-year periodic reinvestigation polygraphs of employees, focusing on counterintelligence programs. In addition the NSA conducts periodic polygraph investigations in order to find spies and leakers; those who refuse to take them may receive "termination of employment", according to a 1982 memorandum from the director of the NSA.[112]
NSA-produced video on the polygraph process
There are also "special access examination" polygraphs for employees who wish to work in highly sensitive areas, and those polygraphs cover counterintelligence questions and some questions about behavior.[112] NSA's brochure states that the average test length is between two and four hours.[113] A 1983 report of the Office of Technology Assessment stated that "It appears that the NSA [National Security Agency] (and possibly CIA) use the polygraph not to determine deception or truthfulness per se, but as a technique of interrogation to encourage admissions."[114]Sometimes applicants in the polygraph process confess to committing felonies such as murder, rape, and selling of illegal drugs. Between 1974 and 1979, of the 20,511 job applicants who took polygraph tests, 695 (3.4%) confessed to previous felony crimes; almost all of those crimes had been undetected.[111]
In 2010 the NSA produced a video explaining its polygraph process.[115] The video, ten minutes long, is titled "The Truth About the Polygraph" and was posted to the Web site of the Defense Security Service. Jeff Stein of The Washington Post said that the video portrays "various applicants, or actors playing them — it's not clear — describing everything bad they had heard about the test, the implication being that none of it is true."[116] AntiPolygraph.org argues that the NSA-produced video omits some information about the polygraph process; it produced a video responding to the NSA video.[115] George Maschke, the founder of the Web site, accused the NSA polygraph video of being "Orwellian".[116]
After Edward Snowden revealed his identity in 2013, the NSA began requiring polygraphing of employees once per quarter.[117]
Arbitrary firing
The number of exemptions from legal requirements has been criticized. When in 1964 the Congress was hearing a bill giving the director of the NSA the power to fire at will any employee,The Washington Post wrote: "This is the very definition of arbitrariness. It means that an employee could be discharged and disgraced on the basis of anonymous allegations without the slightest opportunity to defend himself." Yet, the bill was accepted by an overwhelming majority.[109]
Insignia and memorials
The heraldic insignia of NSA consists of an eagle inside a circle, grasping a key in its talons.[118] The eagle represents the agency's national mission.[118] Its breast features a shield with bands of red and white, taken from the Great Seal of the United States and representing Congress.[118] The key is taken from the emblem of Saint Peter and represents security.[118]
When the NSA was created, the agency had no emblem and used that of the Department of Defense.[119] The agency adopted its first of two emblems in 1963.[119] The current NSA insignia has been in use since 1965, when then-Director, LTG Marshall S. Carter (USA) ordered the creation of a device to represent the agency.[120]
The NSA's flag consists of the agency's seal on a light blue background.
National Cryptologic Memorial
Crews associated with NSA missions have been involved in a number of dangerous and deadly situations.[121] The USS Liberty incident in 1967 and USS Pueblo incident in 1968 are examples of the losses endured during the Cold War.[121]
The National Security Agency/Central Security Service Cryptologic Memorial honors and remembers the fallen personnel, both military and civilian, of these intelligence missions.[122] It is made of black granite, and has 171 names carved into it, as of 2013 .[122] It is located at NSA headquarters. A tradition of declassifying the stories of the fallen was begun in 2001.[122]
NSANet (NSA's intranet)
Behind the Green Door – Secure communications room with separate computer terminals for access to SIPRNET, GWAN, NSANET, and JWICS
NSANet stands for National Security Agency Network and is the official NSA intranet.[123] It is a classified network,[124] for information up to the level of TS/SCI[125] to support the use and sharing of intelligence data between NSA and the signals intelligence agencies of the four other nations of the Five Eyes partnership. The management of NSANet has been delegated to the Central Security Service Texas (CSSTEXAS).[126]
NSANet is a highly secured computer network consisting of fiber-optic and satellite communication channels which are almost completely separated from the public Internet. The network allows NSA personnel and civilian and military intelligence analysts anywhere in the world to have access to the agency's systems and databases. This access is tightly controlled and monitored. For example, every keystroke is logged, activities are audited at random and downloading and printing of documents from NSANet are recorded.[127]
In 1998, NSANet, along with NIPRNET and SIPRNET, had "significant problems with poor search capabilities, unorganized data and old information".[128] In 2004, the network was reported to have used over twenty commercial off-the-shelf operating systems.[129] Some universities that do highly sensitive research are allowed to connect to it.[130]
The thousands of Top Secret internal NSA documents that were taken by Edward Snowden in 2013 were stored in "a file-sharing location on the NSA's intranet site" so they could easily be read online by NSA personnel. Everyone with a TS/SCI-clearance had access to these documents and as a system administrator, Snowden was responsible for moving accidentally misplaced highly sensitive documents to more secure storage locations.[131]
National Computer Security Center
The DoD Computer Security Center was founded in 1981 and renamed the National Computer Security Center (NCSC) in 1985. NCSC was responsible for computer security throughout the federal government.[132] NCSC was part of NSA,[133] and during the late 1980s and the 1990s, NSA and NCSC published Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria in a six-foot high Rainbow Series of books that detailed trusted computing and network platform specifications.[134] The Rainbow books were replaced by the Common Criteria, however, in the early 2000s.[134]
National Security Agency headquarters in Fort Meade, 2013
Headquarters for the National Security Agency is located at 39°6′32″N 76°46′17″W in Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, although it is separate from other compounds and agencies that are based within this same military installation. Ft. Meade is about 20 mi (32 km) southwest of Baltimore,[135] and 25 mi (40 km) northeast of Washington, DC.[136] The NSA has its own exit off Maryland Route 295 South labeled "NSA Employees Only".[137][138] The exit may only be used by people with the proper clearances, and security vehicles parked along the road guard the entrance.[139]
NSA is the largest employer in the U.S. state of Maryland, and two-thirds of its personnel work at Ft. Meade.[140] Built on 350 acres (140 ha; 0.55 sq mi)[141] of Ft. Meade's 5,000 acres (2,000 ha; 7.8 sq mi),[142] the site has 1,300 buildings and an estimated 18,000 parking spaces.[136][143]
NSA headquarters building in Fort Meade (left), NSOC (right)
The main NSA headquarters and operations building is what James Bamford, author of Body of Secrets, describes as "a modern boxy structure" that appears similar to "any stylish office building."[144] The building is covered with one-way dark glass, which is lined with copper shielding in order to prevent espionage by trapping in signals and sounds.[144] It contains 3,000,000 square feet (280,000 m2), or more than 68 acres (28 ha), of floor space; Bamford said that the U.S. Capitol "could easily fit inside it four times over."[144]
The facility has over 100 watchposts,[145] one of them being the visitor control center, a two-story area that serves as the entrance.[144] At the entrance, a white pentagonal structure,[146] visitor badges are issued to visitors and security clearances of employees are checked.[147] The visitor center includes a painting of the NSA seal.[146]
The OPS2A building, the tallest building in the NSA complex and the location of much of the agency's operations directorate, is accessible from the visitor center. Bamford described it as a "dark glass Rubik's Cube".[148] The facility's "red corridor" houses non-security operations such as concessions and the drug store. The name refers to the "red badge" which is worn by someone without a security clearance. The NSA headquarters includes a cafeteria, a credit union, ticket counters for airlines and entertainment, a barbershop, and a bank.[146] NSA headquarters has its own post office, fire department, and police force.[149][150][151]
The employees at the NSA headquarters reside in various places in the Baltimore-Washington area, including Annapolis, Baltimore, and Columbia in Maryland and the District of Columbia, including the Georgetown community.[152]
Due to massive amounts of data processing, NSA is the largest electricity consumer in Maryland.[140]
Following a major power outage in 2000, in 2003 and in follow-ups through 2007, The Baltimore Sun reported that the NSA was at risk of electrical overload because of insufficient internal electrical infrastructure at Fort Meade to support the amount of equipment being installed. This problem was apparently recognized in the 1990s but not made a priority, and "now the agency's ability to keep its operations going is threatened."[153]
Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE, now Constellation Energy) provided NSA with 65 to 75 megawatts at Ft. Meade in 2007, and expected that an increase of 10 to 15 megawatts would be needed later that year.[154] In 2011, NSA at Ft. Meade was Maryland's largest consumer of power.[140] In 2007, as BGE's largest customer, NSA bought as much electricity as Annapolis, the capital city of Maryland.[153]
One estimate put the potential for power consumption by the new Utah Data Center at US$40 million per year.[155]
History of headquarters
Headquarters at Fort Meade circa 1950s
When the agency was established, its headquarters and cryptographic center were in the Naval Security Station in Washington, D.C. The COMINT functions were located in Arlington Hall in Northern Virginia, which served as the headquarters of the U.S. Army's cryptographic operations.[156]Because the Soviet Union had detonated a nuclear bomb and because the facilities were crowded, the federal government wanted to move several agencies, including the AFSA/NSA. A planning committee considered Fort Knox, but Fort Meade, Maryland, was ultimately chosen as NSA headquarters because it was far enough away from Washington, D.C. in case of a nuclear strike and was close enough so its employees would not have to move their families.[157]
Construction of additional buildings began after the agency occupied buildings at Ft. Meade in the late 1950s, which they soon outgrew.[157] In 1963 the new headquarters building, nine stories tall, opened. NSA workers referred to the building as the "Headquarters Building" and since the NSA management occupied the top floor, workers used "Ninth Floor" to refer to their leaders.[158] COMSEC remained in Washington, D.C., until its new building was completed in 1968.[157] In September 1986, the Operations 2A and 2B buildings, both copper-shielded to prevent eavesdropping, opened with a dedication by President Ronald Reagan.[159] The four NSA buildings became known as the "Big Four."[159] The NSA director moved to 2B when it opened.[159]
Fort Meade shooting[edit]
On March 30, 2015, shortly before 9 am, a stolen sports utility vehicle approached an NSA police vehicle blocking the road near the gate of Fort Meade, after it was told to leave the area. NSA officers fired on the SUV, killing the 27-year-old driver, Ricky Hall (a transgender person also known as Mya), and seriously injuring his 20-year-old male passenger. An NSA officer's arm was injured when Hall subsequently crashed into his vehicle.[160][161]
The two, dressed in women's clothing after a night of partying at a motel with the man they'd stolen the SUV from that morning, "attempted to drive a vehicle into the National Security Agency portion of the installation without authorization", according to an NSA statement.[162] FBI spokeswoman Amy Thoreson said the incident is not believed to be related to terrorism.[163]In June 2015 the FBI closed its investigation into the incident and federal prosecutors have declined to bring charges against anyone involved.[164]
An anonymous police official told The Washington Post, "This was not a deliberate attempt to breach the security of NSA. This was not a planned attack." The two are believed to have made a wrong turn off the highway, while fleeing from the motel after stealing the vehicle. A small amount of cocaine was found in the SUV. A local CBS reporter initially said a gun was found,[165]but her later revision does not.[166] Dozens of journalists were corralled into a parking lot blocks away from the scene, and were barred from photographing the area.[167]
Computing[edit]
In 1995, The Baltimore Sun reported that the NSA is the owner of the single largest group of supercomputers.[168]
NSA held a groundbreaking ceremony at Ft. Meade in May 2013 for its High Performance Computing Center 2, expected to open in 2016.[169] Called Site M, the center has a 150 megawatt power substation, 14 administrative buildings and 10 parking garages.[149] It cost $3.2 billion and covers 227 acres (92 ha; 0.355 sq mi).[149] The center is 1,800,000 square feet (17 ha; 0.065 sq mi)[149] and initially uses 60 megawatts of electricity.[170]
Increments II and III are expected to be completed by 2030, and would quadruple the space, covering 5,800,000 square feet (54 ha; 0.21 sq mi) with 60 buildings and 40 parking garages.[149] Defense contractors are also establishing or expanding cybersecurity facilities near the NSA and around the Washington metropolitan area.[149]
Other U.S. facilities
Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado
As of 2012, NSA collected intelligence from four geostationary satellites.[155] Satellite receivers were at Roaring Creek Station in Catawissa, Pennsylvania and Salt Creek Station in Arbuckle, California.[155] It operated ten to twenty taps on U.S. telecom switches. NSA had installations in several U.S. states and from them observed intercepts from Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, and Asia.[155]
NSA had facilities at Friendship Annex (FANX) in Linthicum, Maryland, which is a 20 to 25-minute drive from Ft. Meade;[171] the Aerospace Data Facility at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora outside Denver, Colorado; NSA Texas in the Texas Cryptology Center at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas; NSA Georgia at Fort Gordon in Augusta, Georgia; NSA Hawaii in Honolulu; the Multiprogram Research Facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and elsewhere.[152][155]
On January 6, 2011 a groundbreaking ceremony was held to begin construction on NSA's first Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative (CNCI) Data Center, known as the "Utah Data Center" for short. The $1.5B data center is being built at Camp Williams, Utah, located 25 miles (40 km) south of Salt Lake City, and will help support the agency's National Cyber-security Initiative.[172] It is expected to be operational by September 2013.[155]
In 2009, to protect its assets and to access more electricity, NSA sought to decentralize and expand its existing facilities in Ft. Meade and Menwith Hill,[173] the latter expansion expected to be completed by 2015.[174]
The Yakima Herald-Republic cited Bamford, saying that many of NSA's bases for its Echelon program were a legacy system, using outdated, 1990s technology.[175] In 2004, NSA closed its operations at Bad Aibling Station (Field Station 81) in Bad Aibling, Germany.[176] In 2012, NSA began to move some of its operations at Yakima Research Station, Yakima Training Center, in Washington state to Colorado, planning to leave Yakima closed.[177] As of 2013, NSA also intended to close operations at Sugar Grove, West Virginia.[175]
International stations
RAF Menwith Hill has the largest NSA presence in the United Kingdom.[174]
Following the signing in 1946–1956[178] of the UKUSA Agreement between the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, who then cooperated on signals intelligence and ECHELON,[179] NSA stations were built at GCHQ Bude in Morwenstow, United Kingdom; Geraldton, Pine Gap and Shoal Bay, Australia; Leitrim and Ottawa, Canada; Misawa, Japan; and Waihopai and Tangimoana,[180] New Zealand.[181]
NSA operates RAF Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire, United Kingdom, which was, according to BBC News in 2007, the largest electronic monitoring station in the world.[182] Planned in 1954, and opened in 1960, the base covered 562 acres (227 ha; 0.878 sq mi) in 1999.[183]
The agency's European Cryptologic Center (ECC), with 240 employees in 2011, is headquartered at a US military compound in Griesheim, near Frankfurt in Germany. A 2011 NSA report indicates that the ECC is responsible for the "largest analysis and productivity in Europe" and focusses on various priorities, including Africa, Europe, the Middle East and counterterrorism operations.[184]
In 2013, a new Consolidated Intelligence Center, also to be used by NSA, is being built at the headquarters of the United States Army Europe in Wiesbaden, Germany.[185] NSA's partnership with Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the German foreign intelligence service, was confirmed by BND president Gerhard Schindler.[185]
Thailand is a "3rd party partner" of the NSA along with nine other nations.[186] These are non-English-speaking countries that have made security agreements for the exchange of SIGINT raw material and end product reports.
Thailand is the site of at least two US SIGINT collection stations. One is at the US Embassy in Bangkok, a joint NSA-CIA Special Collection Service (SCS) unit. It presumably eavesdrops on foreign embassies, governmental communications, and other targets of opportunity.[187]
The second installation is a FORNSAT (foreign satellite interception) station in the Thai city of Khon Kaen. It is codenamed INDRA, but has also been referred to as LEMONWOOD.[187] The station is approximately 40 ha (100 acres) in size and consists of a large 3,700–4,600 m2 (40,000–50,000 ft2) operations building on the west side of the ops compound and four radome-enclosed parabolic antennas. Possibly two of the radome-enclosed antennas are used for SATCOM intercept and two antennas used for relaying the intercepted material back to NSA. There is also a PUSHER-type circularly-disposed antenna array (CDAA) array just north of the ops compound.[188][189]
NSA activated Khon Kaen in October 1979. Its mission was to eavesdrop on the radio traffic of Chinese army and air force units in southern China, especially in and around the city of Kunming in Yunnan Province. Back in the late 1970s the base consisted only of a small CDAA antenna array that was remote-controlled via satellite from the NSA listening post at Kunia, Hawaii, and a small force of civilian contractors from Bendix Field Engineering Corp. whose job it was to keep the antenna array and satellite relay facilities up and running 24/7.[188]
According to the papers of the late General William Odom, the INDRA facility was upgraded in 1986 with a new British-made PUSHER CDAA antenna as part of an overall upgrade of NSA and Thai SIGINT facilities whose objective was to spy on the neighboring communist nations of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.[188]
The base apparently fell into disrepair in the 1990s as China and Vietnam became more friendly towards the US, and by 2002 archived satellite imagery showed that the PUSHER CDAA antenna had been torn down, perhaps indicating that the base had been closed. At some point in the period since 9/11, the Khon Kaen base was reactivated and expanded to include a sizeable SATCOM intercept mission. It is likely that the NSA presence at Khon Kaen is relatively small, and that most of the work is done by civilian contractors.[188]
NSA's eavesdropping mission includes radio broadcasting, both from various organizations and individuals, the Internet, telephone calls, and other intercepted forms of communication. Its secure communications mission includes military, diplomatic, and all other sensitive, confidential or secret government communications.[190]
According to the Washington Post, "[e]very day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications. The NSA sorts a fraction of those into 70 separate databases."[191]
Because of its listening task, NSA/CSS has been heavily involved in cryptanalytic research, continuing the work of predecessor agencies which had broken many World War II codes and ciphers (see, for instance, Purple, Venona project, and JN-25).
In 2004, NSA Central Security Service and the National Cyber Security Division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agreed to expand NSA Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education Program.[192]
As part of the National Security Presidential Directive 54/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23 (NSPD 54), signed on January 8, 2008 by President Bush, the NSA became the lead agency to monitor and protect all of the federal government's computer networks from cyber-terrorism.[9]
Operations by the National Security Agency can be divided in three types:
Collection overseas, which falls under the responsibility of the Global Access Operations (GAO) division.
Domestic collection, which falls under the responsibility of the Special Source Operations (SSO) division.
Hacking operations, which falls under the responsibility of the Tailored Access Operations (TAO) division.
Collection overseas
Main article: ECHELON
Echelon was created in the incubator of the Cold War.[193] Today it is a legacy system, and several NSA stations are closing.[175]
NSA/CSS, in combination with the equivalent agencies in the United Kingdom (Government Communications Headquarters), Canada (Communications Security Establishment), Australia (Defence Signals Directorate), and New Zealand (Government Communications Security Bureau), otherwise known as the UKUSA group,[194] was reported to be in command of the operation of the so-called ECHELON system. Its capabilities were suspected to include the ability to monitor a large proportion of the world's transmitted civilian telephone, fax and data traffic.[195]
During the early 1970s, the first of what became more than eight large satellite communications dishes were installed at Menwith Hill.[196] Investigative journalist Duncan Campbell reported in 1988 on the ECHELON surveillance program, an extension of the UKUSA Agreement on global signals intelligence SIGINT, and detailed how the eavesdropping operations worked.[197] In November 3, 1999 the BBC reported that they had confirmation from the Australian Government of the existence of a powerful "global spying network" code-named Echelon, that could "eavesdrop on every single phone call, fax or e-mail, anywhere on the planet" with Britain and the United States as the chief protagonists. They confirmed that Menwith Hill was "linked directly to the headquarters of the US National Security Agency (NSA) at Fort Meade in Maryland".[198]
NSA's United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18 (USSID 18) strictly prohibited the interception or collection of information about "… U.S. persons, entities, corporations or organizations…." without explicit written legal permission from the United States Attorney General when the subject is located abroad, or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court when within U.S. borders. Alleged Echelon-related activities, including its use for motives other than national security, including political and industrial espionage, received criticism from countries outside the UKUSA alliance.[199][200]
Protesters against NSA data mining in Berlin wearing Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden masks.
Other SIGINT operations overseas
The NSA is also involved in planning to blackmail people with "SEXINT", intelligence gained about a potential target's sexual activity and preferences. Those targeted had not committed any apparent crime nor were charged with one.[201]
In order to support its facial recognition program, the NSA is intercepting "millions of images per day".[202]
The Real Time Regional Gateway is a data collection program introduced in 2005 in Iraq by NSA during the Iraq War that consisted of gathering all electronic communication, storing it, then searching and otherwise analyzing it. It was effective in providing information about Iraqi insurgents who had eluded less comprehensive techniques.[203] This "collect it all" strategy introduced by NSA director, Keith B. Alexander, is believed by Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian to be the model for the comprehensive worldwide mass archiving of communications which NSA is engaged in as of 2013.[204]
Edward Snowden revealed in June 2013 that between February 8 and March 8, 2013, the NSA collected about 124.8 billion telephone data items and 97.1 billion computer data items throughout the world, as was displayed in charts from an internal NSA tool codenamed Boundless Informant. It was reported that some of these data reflected eavesdropping on citizens in countries like Germany, Spain and France.[205]
BoundlessInformant employs big data databases, cloud computing technology, and Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to analyze data collected worldwide by the NSA.[206]
Bypassing encryption
In 2013, reporters uncovered a secret memo that claims the NSA created and pushed for the adoption of the Dual_EC_DRBG encryption standard that contained built-in vulnerabilities in 2006 to the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the International Organization for Standardization (aka ISO).[207][208] This memo appears to give credence to previous speculation by cryptographers at Microsoft Research.[209] Edward Snowden claims that the NSA often bypasses encryption altogether by lifting information before it is encrypted or after it is decrypted.[208]
XKeyscore rules (as specified in a file xkeyscorerules100.txt, sourced by German TV stations NDR and WDR, who claim to have excerpts from its source code) reveal that the NSA tracks users of privacy-enhancing software tools, including Tor; an anonymous email service provided by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and readers of the Linux Journal.[210][211]
Domestic activity
Further information: Mass surveillance in the United States
NSA's mission, as set forth in Executive Order 12333 in 1981, is to collect information that constitutes "foreign intelligence or counterintelligence" while not "acquiring information concerning the domestic activities of United States persons". NSA has declared that it relies on the FBI to collect information on foreign intelligence activities within the borders of the United States, while confining its own activities within the United States to the embassies and missions of foreign nations.[212] The appearance of a 'Domestic Surveillance Directorate' of the NSA was soon exposed as a hoax in 2013.[213][214]
NSA's domestic surveillance activities are limited by the requirements imposed by the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for example held in October 2011, citing multiple Supreme Court precedents, that the Fourth Amendment prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures applies to the contents of all communications, whatever the means, because "a person's private communications are akin to personal papers."[215] However, these protections do not apply to non-U.S. persons located outside of U.S. borders, so the NSA's foreign surveillance efforts are subject to far fewer limitations under U.S. law.[216] The specific requirements for domestic surveillance operations are contained in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA), which does not extend protection to non-U.S. citizens located outside of U.S. territory.[216]
George W. Bush, president during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, approved the Patriot Act shortly after the attacks to take anti-terrorist security measures. Title 1, 2, and 9 specifically authorized measures that would be taken by the NSA. These titles granted enhanced domestic security against terrorism, surveillance procedures, and improved intelligence, respectively. On March 10, 2004, there was a debate between President Bush and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General John Ashcroft, and Acting Attorney General James Comey. The Attorney Generals were unsure if the NSA's programs could be considered constitutional. They threatened to resign over the matter, but ultimately the NSA's programs continued.[217] On March 11, 2004, President Bush signed a new authorization for mass surveillance of Internet records, in addition to the surveillance of phone records.This allowed the president to be able to override laws such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which protected civilians from mass surveillance. In addition to this, President Bush also signed that the measures of mass surveillance were also retroactively in place.[218]
Warrantless wiretaps
Main article: NSA warrantless surveillance (2001–07)
On December 16, 2005, The New York Times reported that, under White House pressure and with an executive order from President George W. Bush, the National Security Agency, in an attempt to thwart terrorism, had been tapping phone calls made to persons outside the country, without obtaining warrants from the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a secret court created for that purpose under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).[219]
One such surveillance program, authorized by the U.S. Signals Intelligence Directive 18 of President George Bush, was the Highlander Project undertaken for the National Security Agency by the U.S. Army 513th Military Intelligence Brigade. NSA relayed telephone (including cell phone) conversations obtained from ground, airborne, and satellite monitoring stations to various U.S. Army Signal Intelligence Officers, including the 201st Military Intelligence Battalion. Conversations of citizens of the U.S. were intercepted, along with those of other nations.[220]
Proponents of the surveillance program claim that the President has executive authority to order such action, arguing that laws such as FISA are overridden by the President's Constitutional powers. In addition, some argued that FISA was implicitly overridden by a subsequent statute, the Authorization for Use of Military Force, although the Supreme Court's ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld deprecates this view. In the August 2006 case ACLU v. NSA, U.S. District Court Judge Anna Diggs Taylor concluded that NSA's warrantless surveillance program was both illegal and unconstitutional. On July 6, 2007 the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the decision on the grounds that the ACLU lacked standing to bring the suit.[221]
On January 17, 2006, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit, CCR v. Bush, against the George W. Bush Presidency. The lawsuit challenged the National Security Agency's (NSA's) surveillance of people within the U.S., including the interception of CCR emails without securing a warrant first.[222][223]
In September 2008, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a class action lawsuit against the NSA and several high-ranking officials of the Bush administration,[224] charging an "illegal and unconstitutional program of dragnet communications surveillance,"[225] based on documentation provided by former AT&T technician Mark Klein.[226]
As a result of the USA Freedom Act passed by Congress in June 2015, the NSA had to shut down its bulk phone surveillance program on November 29 of the same year. The USA Freedom Act forbids the NSA to collect metadata and content of phone calls unless it has a warrant for terrorism investigation. In that case the agency has to ask the telecom companies for the record, which will only be kept for six months.
AT&T Internet monitoring
Further information: Hepting v. AT&T, Jewel v. NSA, Mark Klein, and NSA warrantless surveillance controversy
In May 2006, Mark Klein, a former AT&T employee, alleged that his company had cooperated with NSA in installing Narus hardware to replace the FBI Carnivore program, to monitor network communications including traffic between American citizens.[227]
NSA was reported in 2008 to use its computing capability to analyze "transactional" data that it regularly acquires from other government agencies, which gather it under their own jurisdictional authorities. As part of this effort, NSA now monitors huge volumes of records of domestic email data, web addresses from Internet searches, bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel records, and telephone data, according to current and former intelligence officials interviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The sender, recipient, and subject line of emails can be included, but the content of the messages or of phone calls are not.[228]
A 2013 advisory group for the Obama administration, seeking to reform NSA spying programs following the revelations of documents released by Edward J. Snowden.[229] mentioned in 'Recommendation 30' on page 37, "…that the National Security Council staff should manage an interagency process to review on a regular basis the activities of the US Government regarding attacks that exploit a previously unknown vulnerability in a computer application." Retired cyber security expert Richard A. Clarke was a group member and stated on April 11 that NSA had no advance knowledge of Heartbleed.[230]
Illegally obtained evidence
Further information: Parallel construction § Parallel construction in the United States Drug Enforcement Administration
In August 2013 it was revealed that a 2005 IRS training document showed that NSA intelligence intercepts and wiretaps, both foreign and domestic, were being supplied to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and were illegally used to launch criminal investigations of US citizens. Law enforcement agents were directed to conceal how the investigations began and recreate an apparently legal investigative trail by re-obtaining the same evidence by other means.[231][232]
In the months leading to April 2009, the NSA intercepted the communications of American citizens, including a Congressman, although the Justice Department believed that the interception was unintentional. The Justice Department then took action to correct the issues and bring the program into compliance with existing laws.[233] United States Attorney General Eric Holder resumed the program according to his understanding of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amendment of 2008, without explaining what had occurred.[234]
Polls conducted in June 2013 found divided results among Americans regarding NSA's secret data collection.[235] Rasmussen Reports found that 59% of Americans disapprove,[236] Gallup found that 53% disapprove,[237] and Pew found that 56% are in favor of NSA data collection.[238]
Section 215 metadata collection
On April 25, 2013, the NSA obtained a court order requiring Verizon's Business Network Services to provide metadata on all calls in its system to the NSA "on an ongoing daily basis" for a three-month period, as reported by The Guardian on June 6, 2013. This information includes "the numbers of both parties on a call … location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls" but not "[t]he contents of the conversation itself". The order relies on the so-called "business records" provision of the Patriot Act.[239][240]
In August 2013, following the Snowden leaks, new details about the NSA's data mining activity were revealed. Reportedly, the majority of emails into or out of the United States are captured at "selected communications links" and automatically analyzed for keywords or other "selectors". Emails that do not match are deleted.[241]
The utility of such a massive metadata collection in preventing terrorist attacks is disputed. Many studies reveal the dragnet like system to be ineffective. One such report, released by the New America Foundation concluded that after an analysis of 225 terrorism cases, the NSA "had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism."[242]
Defenders of the program say that while metadata alone can't provide all the information necessary to prevent an attack, it assures the ability to "connect the dots"[243] between suspect foreign numbers and domestic numbers with a speed only the NSA's software is capable of. One benefit of this is quickly being able to determine the difference between suspicious activity and real threats.[citation needed] As an example, NSA director General Keith Alexander mentioned at the annual Cybersecurity Summit in 2013, that metadata analysis of domestic phone call records after the Boston Marathon bombing helped determine that[clarification needed] another attack in New York was baseless.[243]
In addition to doubts about its effectiveness, many people argue that the collection of metadata is an unconstitutional invasion of privacy. As of 2015, the collection process remains legal and grounded in the ruling from Smith v. Maryland (1979). A prominent opponent of the data collection and its legality is U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon, who issued a report in 2013[244] in which he stated: "I cannot imagine a more 'indiscriminate' and 'arbitrary invasion' than this systematic and high tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval…Surely, such a program infringes on 'that degree of privacy' that the founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment".
The PRISM program[edit]
PRISM: a clandestine surveillance program under which the NSA collects user data from companies like Microsoft and Facebook.
Under the PRISM program, which started in 2007,[245][246] NSA gathers Internet communications from foreign targets from nine major U.S. Internet-based communication service providers: Microsoft,[247] Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple. Data gathered include email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, VoIP chats such as Skype, and file transfers.
June 2015 – WikiLeaks: Industrial espionage
In June 2015, Wikileaks published documents, which showed that NSA spied on French companies.[248]
July 2015 – WikiLeaks: Espionage against German federal ministries[edit]
In July 2015, WikiLeaks published documents, which showed that NSA spied on federal German ministries since 1990s.[249][250] Even Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphones and phone of her predecessors had been intercepted.[251]
Claims of prevented terrorist attacks
Former NSA director General Keith Alexander claimed that in September 2009 the NSA prevented Najibullah Zazi and his friends from carrying out a terrorist attack.[252] However, this claim has been debunked and no evidence has been presented demonstrating that the NSA has ever been instrumental in preventing a terrorist attack.[253][254][255][256]
Hacking operations
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Besides the more traditional ways of eavesdropping in order to collect signals intelligence, NSA is also engaged in hacking computers, smartphones and their networks. These operations are conducted by the Tailored Access Operations (TAO) division.
NSA's China hacking group
According to the Foreign Policy magazine, "… the Office of Tailored Access Operations, or TAO, has successfully penetrated Chinese computer and telecommunications systems for almost 15 years, generating some of the best and most reliable intelligence information about what is going on inside the People's Republic of China."[257][258]
Syrian internet blackout
In an interview with Wired magazine, Edward Snowden said the Tailored Access Operations division accidentally caused Syria's internet blackout in 2012.[259]
Suspected responsibility for hacking operations by the Equation Group[edit]
The espionage group named the Equation Group, described by discoverers Kaspersky Labs as one of the most advanced (if not the most advanced) in the world as of 2015,[260]:31 and connected to over 500 malware infections in at least 42 countries over many years, is suspected of being a part of NSA.[261][262] The group's known espionage methods have been documented to include interdiction (interception of legitimate CDs sent by a scientific conference organizer by mail),[260]:15 and the "unprecedented" ability to infect and be transmitted through the hard drive firmware of several of the major hard drive manufacturers, and create and use hidden disk areas and virtual disk systems for its purposes, a feat demanding access to the manufacturer's source code of each to achieve.[260]:16–18 The methods used to deploy the tools demonstrated "surgical precision", going so far as to exclude specific countries by IP and allow targeting of specific usernames on discussion forums.[260]:23–26 The techniques and knowledge used by the Equation Group are considered in summary to be "out of the reach of most advanced threat groups in the world except [this group].[260]:31
Software backdoors
Linux kerne
Linus Torvalds, the founder of Linux kernel, joked during a LinuxCon keynote on September 18, 2013 that the NSA, who are the founder of SELinux, wanted a backdoor in the kernel.[263]However, later, Linus' father, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP), revealed that the NSA actually did this.[264]
When my oldest son [Linus Torvalds] was asked the same question: "Has he been approached by the NSA about backdoors?" he said "No", but at the same time he nodded. Then he was sort of in the legal free. He had given the right answer, [but] everybody understood that the NSA had approached him.
— Nils Torvalds, LIBE Committee Inquiry on Electronic Mass Surveillance of EU Citizens – 11th Hearing, 11 November 2013[265]
Main article: _NSAKEY
_NSAKEY was a variable name discovered in Microsoft's Windows NT 4 Service Pack 5 (which had been released unstripped of its symbolic debugging data) in August 1999 by Andrew D. Fernandes of Cryptonym Corporation. That variable contained a 1024-bit public key.
IBM Notes
IBM Notes was the first widely adopted software product to use public key cryptography for client–server and server–server authentication and for encryption of data. Until US laws regulating encryption were changed in 2000, IBM and Lotus were prohibited from exporting versions of Notes that supported symmetric encryption keys that were longer than 40 bits. In 1997, Lotus negotiated an agreement with the NSA that allowed export of a version that supported stronger keys with 64 bits, but 24 of the bits were encrypted with a special key and included in the message to provide a "workload reduction factor" for the NSA. This strengthened the protection for users of Notes outside the US against private-sector industrial espionage, but not against spying by the US government.[266][267]
Boomerang routing
While it is assumed that foreign transmissions terminating in the U.S. (such as a non-U.S. citizen accessing a U.S. website) subject non-U.S. citizens to NSA surveillance, recent research into boomerang routing has raised new concerns about the NSA's ability to surveil the domestic Internet traffic of foreign countries.[18] Boomerang routing occurs when an Internet transmission that originates and terminates in a single country transits another. Research at the University of Toronto has suggested that approximately 25% of Canadian domestic traffic may be subject to NSA surveillance activities as a result of the boomerang routing of Canadian Internet service providers.[18]
Hardware implanting
Intercepted packages are opened carefully by NSA employees
A "load station" implanting a beacon
A document included in NSA files released with Glenn Greenwald's book No Place to Hide details how the agency's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) and other NSA units gain access to hardware. They intercept routers, servers and other network hardware being shipped to organizations targeted for surveillance and install covert implant firmware onto them before they are delivered. This was described by an NSA manager as "some of the most productive operations in TAO because they preposition access points into hard target networks around the world."[268]
Computers seized by the NSA due to interdiction are often modified with a physical device known as Cottonmouth.[269]Cottonmouth is a device that can be inserted in the USB port of a computer in order to establish remote access to the targeted machine. According to NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) group implant catalog, after implanting Cottonmouth, the NSA can establish Bridging (networking) "that allows the NSA to load exploit software onto modified computers as well as allowing the NSA to relay commands and data between hardware and software implants."[270]
Role in scientific research and development[
NSA has been involved in debates about public policy, both indirectly as a behind-the-scenes adviser to other departments, and directly during and after Vice Admiral Bobby Ray Inman's directorship. NSA was a major player in the debates of the 1990s regarding the export of cryptography in the United States. Restrictions on export were reduced but not eliminated in 1996.
Its secure government communications work has involved the NSA in numerous technology areas, including the design of specialized communications hardware and software, production of dedicated semiconductors (at the Ft. Meade chip fabrication plant), and advanced cryptography research. For 50 years, NSA designed and built most of its computer equipment in-house, but from the 1990s until about 2003 (when the U.S. Congress curtailed the practice), the agency contracted with the private sector in the fields of research and equipment.[271]
Data Encryption Standard
Main article: Data Encryption Standard
FROSTBURG was the NSA's first supercomputer, used from 1991 to 1997
NSA was embroiled in some minor controversy concerning its involvement in the creation of the Data Encryption Standard (DES), a standard and public block cipher algorithm used by the U.S. government and banking community. During the development of DES by IBM in the 1970s, NSA recommended changes to some details of the design. There was suspicion that these changes had weakened the algorithm sufficiently to enable the agency to eavesdrop if required, including speculation that a critical component—the so-called S-boxes—had been altered to insert a "backdoor" and that the reduction in key length might have made it feasible for NSA to discover DES keys using massive computing power. It has since been observed that the S-boxes in DES are particularly resilient against differential cryptanalysis, a technique which was not publicly discovered until the late 1980s, but which was known to the IBM DES team.
The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reviewed NSA's involvement, and concluded that while the agency had provided some assistance, it had not tampered with the design.[272][273] In late 2009 NSA declassified information stating that "NSA worked closely with IBM to strengthen the algorithm against all except brute force attacks and to strengthen substitution tables, called S-boxes. Conversely, NSA tried to convince IBM to reduce the length of the key from 64 to 48 bits. Ultimately they compromised on a 56-bit key."[274][275]
Main article: Advanced Encryption Standard
The involvement of NSA in the selection of a successor to Data Encryption Standard (DES), the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), was limited to hardware performance testing (see AES competition).[276] NSA has subsequently certified AES for protection of classified information (for at most two levels, e.g. SECRET information in an unclassified environment[clarification needed]) when used in NSA-approved systems.[277]
NSA encryption systems
STU-III secure telephones on display at the National Cryptologic Museum
Main article: NSA encryption systems
The NSA is responsible for the encryption-related components in these legacy systems:
FNBDT Future Narrow Band Digital Terminal[278]
KL-7 ADONIS off-line rotor encryption machine (post-WWII – 1980s)[279][280]
KW-26 ROMULUS electronic in-line teletypewriter encryptor (1960s–1980s)[281]
KW-37 JASON fleet broadcast encryptor (1960s–1990s)[280]
KY-57 VINSON tactical radio voice encryptor[281]
KG-84 Dedicated Data Encryption/Decryption[281]
STU-III secure telephone unit,[281] phased out by the STE[282]
The NSA oversees encryption in following systems which are in use today:
EKMS Electronic Key Management System[283]
Fortezza encryption based on portable crypto token in PC Card format[284]
SINCGARS tactical radio with cryptographically controlled frequency hopping[285]
STE secure terminal equipment[282]
TACLANE product line by General Dynamics C4 Systems[286]
The NSA has specified Suite A and Suite B cryptographic algorithm suites to be used in U.S. government systems; the Suite B algorithms are a subset of those previously specified by NIST and are expected to serve for most information protection purposes, while the Suite A algorithms are secret and are intended for especially high levels of protection.[277]
The widely used SHA-1 and SHA-2 hash functions were designed by NSA. SHA-1 is a slight modification of the weaker SHA-0 algorithm, also designed by NSA in 1993. This small modification was suggested by NSA two years later, with no justification other than the fact that it provides additional security. An attack for SHA-0 that does not apply to the revised algorithm was indeed found between 1998 and 2005 by academic cryptographers. Because of weaknesses and key length restrictions in SHA-1, NIST deprecates its use for digital signatures, and approves only the newer SHA-2 algorithms for such applications from 2013 on.[287]
A new hash standard, SHA-3, has recently been selected through the competition concluded October 2, 2012 with the selection of Keccak as the algorithm. The process to select SHA-3 was similar to the one held in choosing the AES, but some doubts have been cast over it,[288][289] since fundamental modifications have been made to Keccak in order to turn it into a standard.[290] These changes potentially undermine the cryptanalysis performed during the competition and reduce the security levels of the algorithm.[288]
Dual_EC_DRBG random number generator
Main article: Dual_EC_DRBG
NSA promoted the inclusion of a random number generator called Dual_EC_DRBG in the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology's 2007 guidelines. This led to speculation of a backdoor which would allow NSA access to data encrypted by systems using that pseudo random number generator.[291]
This is now deemed to be plausible based on the fact that the output of the next iterations of the PRNG can provably be determined if the relation between two internal elliptic curve points is known.[292][293] Both NIST and RSA are now officially recommending against the use of this PRNG.[294][295]
Clipper chip
Main article: Clipper chip
Because of concerns that widespread use of strong cryptography would hamper government use of wiretaps, NSA proposed the concept of key escrow in 1993 and introduced the Clipper chip that would offer stronger protection than DES but would allow access to encrypted data by authorized law enforcement officials.[296] The proposal was strongly opposed and key escrow requirements ultimately went nowhere.[297] However, NSA's Fortezza hardware-based encryption cards, created for the Clipper project, are still used within government, and NSA ultimately declassified and published the design of the Skipjack cipher used on the cards.[298][299]
Perfect Citizen
Main article: Perfect Citizen
Perfect Citizen is a program to perform vulnerability assessment by the NSA on U.S. critical infrastructure.[300][301] It was originally reported to be a program to develop a system of sensors to detect cyber attacks on critical infrastructure computer networks in both the private and public sector through a network monitoring system named Einstein.[302][303] It is funded by the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative and thus far Raytheon has received a contract for up to $100 million for the initial stage.
NSA has invested many millions of dollars in academic research under grant code prefix MDA904, resulting in over 3,000 papers (as of 2007-10-11). NSA/CSS has, at times, attempted to restrict the publication of academic research into cryptography; for example, the Khufu and Khafre block ciphers were voluntarily withheld in response to an NSA request to do so. In response to a FOIA lawsuit, in 2013 the NSA released the 643-page research paper titled, "Untangling the Web: A Guide to Internet Research,[304] " written and compiled by NSA employees to assist other NSA workers in searching for information of interest to the agency on the public Internet.[305]
NSA has the ability to file for a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office under gag order. Unlike normal patents, these are not revealed to the public and do not expire. However, if the Patent Office receives an application for an identical patent from a third party, they will reveal NSA's patent and officially grant it to NSA for the full term on that date.[306]
One of NSA's published patents describes a method of geographically locating an individual computer site in an Internet-like network, based on the latency of multiple network connections.[307] Although no public patent exists, NSA is reported to have used a similar locating technology called trilateralization that allows real-time tracking of an individual's location, including altitude from ground level, using data obtained from cellphone towers.[308]
See also: Global surveillance disclosures (2013–present)
Excerpt of James Clapper's false testimony to Congress on NSA surveillance programs
In the United States, at least since 2001,[309] there has been legal controversy over what signal intelligence can be used for and how much freedom the National Security Agency has to use signal intelligence.[310] The government has made, in 2015, slight changes in how it uses and collects certain types of data,[311] specifically phone records. President Barack Obama has asked lawyers and his national security team to look at the tactics that are being used by the NSA. President Obama made a speech on January 17, 2014 where he defended the national security measures, including the NSA, and their intentions for keeping the country safe through surveillance. He said that it is difficult to determine where the line should be drawn between what is too much surveillance and how much is needed for national security because technology is ever changing and evolving. Therefore, the laws cannot keep up with the rapid advancements.
President Obama did make some changes to national security regulations and how much data can be collected and surveyed.[citation needed] The first thing he added, was more presidential directive and oversight so that privacy and basic rights are not violated. The president would look over requests on behalf of American citizens to make sure that their personal privacy is not violated by the data that is being requested. Secondly, surveillance tactics and procedures are becoming more public, including over 40 rulings of the FISC that have been declassified.[citation needed] Thirdly, further protections are being placed on activities that are justified under Section 702, such as the ability to retain, search and use data collected in investigations, which allows the NSA to monitor and intercept interaction of targets overseas. Finally, national security letters, which are secret requests for information that the FBI uses in their investigations, are becoming less secretive. The secrecy of the information requested will not be indefinite and will terminate after a set time if future secrecy is not required.[citation needed] Concerning the bulk surveillance of American's phone records, President Obama also ordered a transition from bulk surveillance under Section 215 to a new policy that will eliminate unnecessary bulk collection of metadata.
As of May 7, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act was wrong and that the NSA program that has been collecting Americans' phone records in bulk is illegal.[312] It stated that Section 215 cannot be clearly interpreted to allow government to collect national phone data and, as a result, expired on June 1, 2015. This ruling "is the first time a higher-level court in the regular judicial system has reviewed the N.S.A. phone records program." [313] The new bill getting passed later in May taking its place is known as the U.S.A. Freedom Act, which will enable the NSA to continue hunting for terrorists by analyzing telephone links between callers but "keep the bulk phone records in the hands of phone companies."[313] This would give phone companies the freedom to dispose the records in an 18-month period. The White House argued that this new ruling validated President Obama's support of the government being extracted from bulk data collection and giving power to the telecommunications companies.
Previously, the NSA paid billions of dollars to telecommunications companies in order to collect data from them.[314] While companies such as Google and Yahoo! claim that they do not provide "direct access" from their servers to the NSA unless under a court order,[315] the NSA had access to emails, phone calls and cellular data users.[316] With this new ruling, telecommunications companies would not provide the NSA with bulk information. The companies would allow the disposal of data in every 18 months,[313] which is arguably putting the telecommunications companies at a higher advantage.
This ruling made the collecting of phone records illegal, but it did not rule on Section 215's constitutionality. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already put forth a new bill to re-authorize the Patriot Act.[317] Defenders of this surveillance program are claiming that judges who sit on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) had ruled 37 times that this kind of collection of data is, in fact, lawful.[317] The FISC is the court specifically mandated to grant surveillance orders in the name of foreign intelligence. The new ruling made by the Second District Court of Appeals now retroactively dismisses the findings of the FISC on this program.
FAPSI – Russia (1991–2003)
Australian Signals Directorate or ASD – Australia
Communications Security Establishment Canada or CSE – Canada
Five Eyes Canadian – American – Australian – British – New Zealander intelligence sharing agreement
Garda National Surveillance Unit or NSU – Ireland
Government Communications Security Bureau or GCSB – New Zealand
Government Communications Headquarters or GCHQ – United Kingdom
Internal Security Department (Singapore) or ISD – Singapore
Mass surveillance in the United Kingdom
Mass surveillance in the United States
Ministry of State Security or Stasi – former German Democratic Republic
Ministry of State Security (China) or MSS – China
National Technical Research Organisation or NTRO – India
National Intelligence Priorities Framework
Special Communications Service of Russia or Spetssvyaz – Russia
Korean Air Lines Flight 007
Operation Ivy Bells
Operation Eikonal
Harold T. Martin III
USS Maddox incident
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency
Count Down To Pardons: Will President Obama Pardon The Clinton Criminal Conspirators? Yes — Will The Clinton Criminal Conspirators Accept The Pardons? Yes — Why? Mutually Assured Destruction Of Obama and Clinton If They Do Not! — Videos
Posted on December 28, 2016. Filed under: American History, Articles, Blogroll, Business, College, Communications, Crime, Crisis, Education, Faith, Family, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Foreign Policy, Fraud, Freedom, Friends, government, government spending, history, Law, liberty, Life, Links, Literacy, media, Money, National Security Agency (NSA_, Newspapers, People, Philosophy, Photos, Police, Politics, Radio, Raves, Regulations, Strategy, Success, Talk Radio, Television, Video, Wealth, Welfare, Wisdom, Work, Writing | Tags: Cartoons, Clinton Crime Conspirators, Crimes, Donald J. Trump, Felonies, Ford Pardons Nixon, Hillary To be Pardoned, Mutually Assured Destruction, Obama Pardon Hillary Clinton, Pardon, Photos, Preident Barack Obama, President Barack Obama, Presidential Pardon, rule of law, Videos |
Now, THEREFORE, I, BARACK H. OBAMA, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Hillary Clinton for all offenses against the United States which she, Hillary Clinton, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 21, 2009 through February 1, 2013.
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Will Obama pardon Clinton? And if he does, will she accept?
BY DAVID WEISBERG, CONTRIBUTOR – 12/27/16 01:00 PM EST 2,872
Executive orders barring offshore drilling in most U.S. Arctic waters; an abstention at the U.N. permitting the Security Council to declare all Israeli settlement activity to be illegal and an obstacle to peace; the possibility of further action at the U.N. to formalize the administration's comprehensive vision of a two-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict — President Obama is sprinting, not jogging, to the finish line.
In dashing through his last few weeks in office, will one of Obama's final acts be to pardon Hillary Clinton for any violations of federal law she might have committed while she was secretary of State?
It's an interesting and complex question.
We should first note that the Obama administration's decision not to prosecute Clinton would not bind the Trump administration. Until relevant statutes of limitations have expired, she could still be prosecuted by the new administration. It is possible, in my opinion, for Clinton to be prosecuted for either her improper handling of classified information on her "home brew" email server or allegations of "pay to play" arrangements between the secretary of State and donors to the Clinton Foundation, which could constitute bribery.
The statute of limitations for most federal crimes is five years from the commission of the offense; that would apply to the two categories relevant to Clinton. Her tenure as secretary of State ended Feb. 1, 2013, so it is possible that the statute of limitations will not run until Feb. 1, 2018, more than a year after Donald Trump takes office.
What looks like one question — will the president pardon Clinton? — turns out, on analysis, to be two. The first question is: Would Clinton wish to receive a pardon?
That question seems to be a proverbial no-brainer. Surely, any person who had been in federal government would be eager to receive a presidential pardon, because it eliminates even the possibility of federal prosecution. That looks like all upside and no downside.
But there is a downside, and it isn't trivial. A pardon must be accepted by the person who is pardoned if it is to effectively stymie any prosecution.
Furthermore, there is solid legal precedent that acceptance of a pardon is equivalent to confession of guilt. A U.S. Supreme Court case from 1915 called Burdick v. U.S. establishes that principle; it has never been overturned.
If acceptance of a pardon by Clinton would amount to confession of guilt, would she nevertheless accept it? A multitude of factors would go into her decision.
She, together with her attorneys, would have to decide how likely it is that the Trump administration would prosecute her, and, if it did decide to prosecute, how likely the administration would be able to prove she had committed crimes.
Since being elected, Trump has been remarkably warm towards the person he used to call "Crooked Hillary." But how confident could Clinton be that the Justice Department, under a Trump administration, would not prosecute?
Prosecutorial decisions are supposed to be independent of political considerations, so Trump's recent friendliness should not be controlling once the new attorney general is in office.
If Clinton believes prosecutors might be able to make a strong case against her, the value to her of a pardon increases. If she is confident that any case against her would be weak or even futile, the pardon has less value.
If Clinton decides that, everything considered, she would prefer to receive a pardon, she would no doubt be able to convey that message to Obama, and then the ball would be in his court. Thus, the second question is: Would Obama grant Clinton's request for a pardon?
From Obama's perspective, the decision to grant or withhold a pardon is a political and a personal one. Legal considerations do not directly arise.
Like all presidents at the end of their terms, he is concerned about the legacy he leaves for history. Does he want his legacy to include a pardon of the secretary of State who served under him during the entirety of his first term in office?
Because acceptance of a pardon amounts to a confession of guilt, the acceptance by Clinton would, to a degree, besmirch both Clinton and also Obama. After all, Clinton was Obama's secretary of State. If she was committing illegal acts as secretary, it happened literally on his watch.
On the other hand, if the new administration were to prosecute and convict Clinton of crimes committed while she was secretary, that might be an even greater embarrassment for Obama post-presidency.
In addition to calculations regarding his legacy, Obama and Clinton surely have developed over many years, both as opponents and as teammates, a personal relationship. If Clinton were to ask Obama for a pardon, how would that personal relationship play into his response? I cannot say.
Days after Trump won the election, the White House press secretary was asked by Jordan Fabian of The Hill whether Obama would consider pardoning Clinton. He carefully avoided a direct answer.
Instead, the press secretary said that, in cases where Obama had granted pardons, "[w]e didn't talk in advance about those decisions." He also expressed hope that the new administration would follow "a long tradition in this country of people in power not using the criminal justice system to exact political revenge."
Of course, there is also a long tradition in this country that no one is above the law, no matter how high a position in government he or she might have formerly occupied.
So, those are the main considerations that would go into deciding a very complex question. It's time for all of us to show our hands.
I'm saying yes, he will pardon her. Can you beat that?
David E. Weisberg is a semi-retired attorney and a member of the New York state bar. He currently resides in Cary, North Carolina, and has published pieces on the Social Science Research Network and in The Times of Israel.
Would Obama consider pardoning Clinton?
Trump has promised to put her in jail, but Obama could forestall that possibility with the stroke of a pen.
11/09/16 12:29 PM EST
Updated 11/09/16 02:41 PM EST
President-elect Donald Trump's campaign was energized by calls to prosecute Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server containing classified information, but one man now has a unique power to frustrate the Trump partisans' cries of "Lock her up!": President Barack Obama.
Experts agree that Obama has the authority to foreclose that possibility by pardoning Clinton for any federal offenses she may have committed or could ever be prosecuted for. And he could do it whether she asks or not.
"The president here will, I'm sure, consider using what tools he has in his last couple of weeks, including a pardon, to do what he can before Trump takes over," said Harold Krent, dean of the Chicago-Kent College of Law. "There's a window and presidents have used those windows to accomplish a variety of goals."
"What he's going to do with this power in the next two months is really a good question," said a close observer of the pardon process who asked not be named. "There are so many things on the table….This whole event is going to cause us to think even more about: what is this power?"
But such an act of clemency for Clinton is fraught with danger to Obama's reputation and to hers, as any move to protect the failed Democratic presidential nominee would surely trigger charges of unfairness and political favoritism, while seeming to some to be an admission of guilt.
While Trump's campaign-rhetoric about subjecting Clinton to a special prosecutor who would put her "in jail" was stark and fired up his crowds, he seems likely to softpedal that kind of talk in the coming weeks as he looks to bridge the stark divide in the country and build legitimacy.
Indeed, Wednesday morning, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway suggested the issue of prosecuting Clinton has moved to the back burner for now.
"We did not discuss that last night since his victory. And he certainly didn't address it with Mrs. Clinton on the phone," Conway said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
"I think you heard his own words last night — to the extent that one man can as president, certainly Vice President Pence who's phenomenal, they're looking to unify the country. But we haven't discussed that in recent days. And I think that it's all in good time," she added.
Still, a pardon would offer the only foolproof way to head off such a prosecution. And the window for Clinton's best shot at clemency closes on Jan. 20.
Such a move by Obama could also be a boon of sorts for Trump. It would provide a convenient way for the incoming president not to follow through with a renewed investigation that could breed further resentment from Democrats.
When it comes to considering a pardon for Clinton, however, one of the biggest obstacles could be Obama's own words.
At a press conference in August, Obama pledged to handle last-minute pardons by the book, distancing himself from the chaotic situation that played out in the final days of Bill Clinton's presidency and tarnished his legacy.
"The process that I put in place is not going to vary depending on how close I get to the election. So it's going to be reviewed by the pardon attorney, it will be reviewed by my White House counsel, and I'm going to, as best as I can, make these decisions based on the merits, as opposed to political considerations," Obama said.
The White House on Wednesday refused to say whether Obama would consider pardoning Clinton , but appeared to issue a warning to Trump, saying powerful people should not exploit the criminal justice system for "political revenge."
"As you know the president has offered clemency to a substantial number of Americans who were previously serving time in federal prisons,", Earnest told reporters during the daily briefing. "And we didn't talk in advance about the president's plans to offer clemency to any of those individuals and that is because we don't talk about the president's thinking, particularly with respect to any specific cases that may apply to pardons or commutations."
He added, "We have a long tradition in this country of people in power not using the criminal justice system to enact political revenge. In fact we go a long way to insulate the criminal justice system from partisan politics."
Longtime Clinton lawyer David Kendall did not respond to a request for comment.
The legacy questions seem certain to be at the top of Obama's mind. Ford's pardon of Nixon was highly controversial and the time and helped cost Ford the 1976 election. Bill Clinton's late-term pardons of financier Marc Rich and others unleashed a controversy that still mars Clinton's image.
There are numerous precedents for a pre-trial pardon, including one in a high-profile case of mishandling classified information.
In one of his late term pardons in 2001, Clinton granted clemency to former CIA Director John Deutch, who had agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor for storing classified information on his home computer. Deutch had actually signed a plea agreement, but the paperwork had never been filed in court.
Ford's pardon of Nixon also came before any charges had been filed against him. The broadly-worded decree absolved Nixon of guilt "for all offenses against the United States which he…has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974."
Nixon never asked for or accepted the pardon, but that didn't affect its validity. (A 1927 Supreme Court case says an unconditional pardon is valid whether or not it's accepted by the recipient.)
Part of the fairness consideration in Clinton's case would involve her own aides. How could Obama block a prosecution of Clinton but leave her aides and others caught up in the email fiasco without any protection?
It seems doubtful that a prosecutor would charge one or more Clinton aides or allies if she was off the hook, but it's far from impossible. Oftentimes in such cases, aides wind up in prosecutors' crosshairs even when higher-ranking officials escape charges.
A good example of that is Lewis (Scooter) Libby, former Chief of Staff to Vice President Cheney, who was charged with lying and obstruction of justice in an investigation into who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame.
In 2007, Libby was convicted by a jury and sentenced to two and a half years in prison. President George W. Bush commuted the sentence, sparing Libby jail time. However, Bush turned down repeated pleas from Cheney to clear Libby with a full pardon.
Wording a Clinton pardon might not be easy, lawyers say.
If Obama is fully intent on closing the book on a Clinton prosecution, he could try to sweep in not only her conduct as secretary of state, but also her statements since and anything she might have done in connection with the Clinton Foundation. Moving in that direction would again raise questions of whether Obama would excuse others or just his former secretary of state.
While pre-trial, pre-charge pardons have been uncommon in recent years, there are many examples throughout American history.
In 1974, Ford issued an amnesty for Vietnam War draft dodgers and deserters, conditioned on two years of public service in U.S.
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter issued a blanket, unconditional pardon to hundreds of thousands of men who dodged the draft during the Vietnam War era. Many had been charged, but most had not.
And in 1894, President Grover Cleveland pardoned an unnamed and uncounted number of Mormons in Utah, excusing them from prosecution for bigamy and related crimes.
The pardon power "is unlimited and unreviewable," former House counsel Stan Brand said. "Constitutionally, certainly [Obama] could do that."
Brand said he doubts Trump will follow through on his threats of a special prosecutor, but the former Congressional attorney acknowledged that's a political judgment, so Clinton's lawyers seem certain to consider the pardon option.
"If he wants to be president, he's the president-elect now, he truly has to switch from campaign mode to governing mode," Brand added. "I'd say good luck to them politically, if [Trump's team] thinks that's going to advance their agenda."
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/would-obama-pardon-clinton-231120
BIG SURPRISE: Media Betting Obama Will Pardon Hillary Clinton Before He Leaves The White House
Elections, Hot, Today's News
by LN Buzz Team
A lot of us figured this was coming, but now the mainstream media is predicting the obvious in print.
In a piece by contributor David Weisberg over at The Hill, he declares that Obama will make sure to pardon Hillary Clinton "for any violations of federal law she might have committed while she was secretary of state."
Weisberg writes:
We should first note that the Obama administration's decision not to prosecute Mrs. Clinton would not bind the Trump administration. Until relevant statutes of limitations have expired, she could still be prosecuted by the new administration. It is possible in my opinion for Clinton to be prosecuted for either her improper handling of classified information on "home brew," or allegations of "pay to play" arrangements between the secretary of state and donors to the Clinton Foundation, which could constitute bribery.
The statute of limitations for most federal crimes is five years from the commission of the offense; that would apply to the two categories relevant to Mrs. Clinton. Her tenure as secretary of state ended Feb. 1, 2013, so it is possible that the statute of limitations will not run until Feb. 1, 2018, more than a year after Mr. Trump takes office.
Apparently, however, there is legal precedent for the acceptance of a pardon being equal to an admission of guilt. It was established by a 1915 U.S. Supreme Court case, Burdick v. U.S. which has never been overturned. In other words, if Hillary takes the pardon, she's admitting she committed at least one crime she committed and needs to be pardoned for.
Then again, is it even likely Trump is actually going to prosecute Hillary anyway? Pretty much as soon as he won, he announced that he no longer planned to. Even Weisberg points out, "Since being elected, Mr. Trump has been remarkably warm towards the person he used to call 'crooked Hillary'." It's been speculated Trump's promise not to prosecute was part of the phone call ensuring Hillary would concede. Then again, they'd been pretty good friends for the two decades leading up to the election.
Weisberg goes on to say he thinks Obama's pardon for Hillary is forthcoming. Why not. The White House won't deny the option is being considered, even though, again, Trump has come out to say he does not plan to prosecute Hillary anyway.
Obama's pardon of Hillary will probably be worded a lot like (if not exactlylike) Ford's Pardon of Richard Nixon:
Now, THEREFORE, I, GERALD R. FORD, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.
Hillary's pardon will be just as ambiguously worded, to make sure and cover anything and everything (and there's a lot to cover).
As projected, it'll likely be dated for her entire tenure as Secretary of State, too.
This story was written by Melissa Dykes and published at The Daily Sheeple.
http://libertynews.com/2016/12/big-surprise-media-betting-obama-will-pardon-hillary-clinton-before-he-leaves-the-white-house/
Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State
Clinton takes the oath of office as Secretary of State, administered by Associate Judge Kathryn Oberly as Bill Clinton holds the Bible.
Hillary Clinton served as the 67th United States Secretary of State, under President Barack Obama, from 2009 to 2013, overseeing the department that conducted the Foreign policy of Barack Obama.
She was preceded in office by Condoleezza Rice, and succeeded by John Kerry. She is also the only former First Lady of the United States to become a member of the United States Cabinet.
Political positions
State Department controversy
Obama's foreign policy
Email controversy
Hillary Doctrine
Campaign for the presidency
Primaries
Potential SCOTUS candidates
U.S. Senator from New York
2006 re-election
Whitewater and other investigations
Response to Lewinsky scandal
Nomination and confirmation
Wikinews has related news: Hillary Clinton nominated as US Secretary of State
Within a week after the November 4, 2008, presidential election, President-elect Obama and Clinton discussed over telephone the possibility of her serving as U.S. Secretary of State in his administration.[1][2] Clinton later related, "He said I want you to be my secretary of state. And I said, 'Oh, no, you don't.' I said, 'Oh, please, there's so many other people who could do this.'"[2] Clinton initially turned Obama down, but he persisted.[3][4] Some Democratic senators welcomed the idea of her leaving, having been allied with Obama during the campaign, and believing that Clinton had risked party disunity by keeping her candidacy going for so long.[5]
Obama and Clinton held a meeting on the subject on November 11.[6] When the possibility became public on November 14, it came as a surprising and dramatic move, especially given the long, sometimes bitter battle the two had waged during the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries.[1][7] Obama had specifically criticized Clinton's foreign policy credentials during the contests, and the initial idea of him appointing her had been so unexpected that she had told one of her own aides, "Not in a million years."[4] However, it has been reported that Obama had been thinking of the idea as far back as the 2008 Democratic National Convention.[8] Despite the aggressiveness of the campaign and the still-lingering animosities between the two campaign staffs,[9] as with many primary battles, the political differences between the candidates were never that great,[10] the two rivals had reportedly developed a respect for one another,[8] and she had campaigned for him in the general election.[4]
Consideration of Clinton was seen as Obama wanting to assemble a "team of rivals" in his administration, à la Abraham Lincoln.[4][11][12] The notion of rivals successfully working together also found applicability in other fields, such as George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower in relation to Operation Overlord during World War II and Indra Nooyi keeping on her top rival for CEO at Pepsico.[10] At the same time, the choice gave Obama an image of being self-assured.[13]
Clinton was conflicted whether she wanted to take the position or remain in the Senate, and agonized over her decision.[4][6][14] While the Senate leadership had discussed possible leadership positions or other promotions in rank with her even before the cabinet position became a possibility, nothing concrete had been offered.[15] The prospect of her ever becoming Senate Majority Leader seemed dim.[5] A different complication was Bill Clinton; she told Obama: "There's one last thing that's a problem, which is my husband. You've seen what this is like; it will be a circus if I take this job", making reference to the volatile effect Bill Clinton had had during the primaries.[3] In addition, there was a specific concern whether the financial and other involvements of Bill Clinton's post-presidential activities would violate any conflict-of-interest rules for serving cabinet members.[14] There was as well considerable media speculation about what effect taking the position would have on her political career and any possible future presidential aspirations.[14][16] Clinton wavered over the offer, but as she later related, "But, you know, we kept talking. I finally began thinking, look, if I had won and I had called him, I would have wanted him to say yes. And, you know, I'm pretty old-fashioned, and it's just who I am. So at the end of the day, when your president asks you to serve, you say yes, if you can."[2] Chief of Protocol of the United States Capricia Penavic Marshall, who had known Clinton since her First Lady days, later confirmed the same rationale: "When asked to serve, she does. And her president asked."[4]
On November 21, reports indicated that Clinton had accepted the position.[17] On December 1, President-elect Obama formally announced that Clinton would be his nominee for Secretary of State.[18] Clinton said she was reluctant to leave the Senate, but that the new position represented a "difficult and exciting adventure".[18] As part of the nomination, Bill Clinton agreed to accept a number of conditions and restrictions regarding his ongoing activities and fundraising efforts for the Clinton Presidential Center and Clinton Global Initiative.[19]
The appointment required a Saxbe fix,[20] which was passed and signed into law in December 2008 before confirmation hearings began.[21] Confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began on January 13, 2009, a week before the Obama inauguration. Clinton stated during her confirmation hearings that she believed that "the best way to advance America's interests in reducing global threats and seizing global opportunities is to design and implement global solutions" and "We must use what has been called 'smart power', the full range of tools at our disposal — diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal and cultural — picking the right tool or combination of tools for each situation. With smart power, diplomacy will be the vanguard of our foreign policy."[22]
On January 15, the Committee voted 16–1 to approve Clinton.[23] Republican Senator David Vitter of Louisiana was the lone dissenting vote in the committee.[23] By this time, Clinton's public favorable/unfavorable rating had reached 65 percent, the highest point in her public career since the Lewinsky scandal during her time as First Lady,[24] and 71 percent of the public approved of the nomination to the cabinet.[20]
Even before taking office, Clinton was working together with Bush administration officials in assessing national security issues. The night before the inauguration of the new president, contingency plans against a purported plot by Somali extremists against Obama and the inauguration was being discussed. Clinton argued that typical security responses were not tenable: "Is the Secret Service going to whisk him off the podium so the American people see their incoming president disappear in the middle of the inaugural address? I don't think so."[25] (The threat turned out to not exist.)
On January 21, 2009, Clinton was confirmed in the full Senate by a vote of 94–2.[26] Vitter and Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina voted against the confirmation.[26]
Clinton took the oath of office of Secretary of State and resigned from the Senate that same day.[27] She became the first former First Lady to serve in the United States Cabinet.[28] She also became the first Secretary of State to have previously been an elected official since Edmund Muskie's less-than-a-year stint in 1980,[29] with Christian Herter during the Eisenhower administration being the last one before that. In being selected by her formal rival Obama, she became only the fourth person in the preceding hundred years to join the cabinet of someone they had run against for their party's presidential nomination that election year (Jack Kemp ran against and was later chosen by George H. W. Bush to be Secretary of HUD in 1988, George W. Romney by Richard Nixon for Secretary of HUD in 1968, and Philander Knox by William Howard Taft for Secretary of State in 1908 preceded her; Obama's pick of Tom Vilsack for Secretary of Agriculture followed her a couple of weeks later to be the next such person).
(On January 29, 2009, the constitutionality of her Saxbe fix was challenged in court by Judicial Watch;[30] on October 30, 2009, the courts dismissed the case.[31])
During the Obama presidential transition, Clinton described her own transition as "difficult … in some respects, because [she] never even dreamed of it."[12] Then, and in the early days of her tenure, there was considerable jockeying for jobs within the department among those in "Hillaryland", her longtime circle of advisors and staff aides, as well as others who had worked with her in the past, with not as many jobs as those desiring of them.[32][33] Obama gave Clinton more freedom to choose her staff than he did to any other cabinet member.[5][10]
Clinton's former campaign manager, Maggie Williams, handled the staff hiring process.[32] Longtime counsel to both Clintons Cheryl Mills served as the secretary's Counselor and Chief of Staff.[33] James B. Steinberg was named Deputy Secretary of State.[33] Jacob "Jack" Lew, once Bill Clinton's Director of the Office of Management and Budget, was named Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, a new position.[34] This was an unusual step intended by Hillary Clinton to push to the forefront the emphasis on getting higher budget allocations from Congress and overlooking internal workings.[33][34] Anne-Marie Slaughter was appointed Director of Policy Planning with a view towards long-term policy towards Asia.[33] Huma Abedin, Clinton's longtime personal assistant, was Deputy Chief of Staff for the secretary and remained a key member of Clinton's operation.[32][35]
Much like she did at the beginning of her Senate career, Clinton kept a low profile during her early months and worked hard to familiarize herself with the culture and institutional history of the department.[33] She met or spoke with all of the living former secretaries, and especially relied upon her close friendship with Madeleine Albright.[33]
At the start of her tenure, Obama and Clinton announced several high-profile special envoys to trouble spots in the world, including former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell as Mideast envoy and Richard Holbrooke as envoy to South Asia and Afghanistan.[36] On January 27, 2009, Secretary of State Clinton appointed Todd Stern as the department's Special Envoy for Climate Change.[37]
By May 2009, Clinton and the Obama administration intended to nominate Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health, as Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID),[38] but by August 2009 his nomination was reportedly scotched by the White House for reasons unknown.[39][40] This caused Clinton, while visiting USAID, to publicly criticize the long vetting process for administration appointments[39] calling it a "nightmare" and "frustrating beyond words."[40] In November 2009, an unconventional choice was nominated instead, Rajiv Shah, a young Under Secretary of Agriculture for Research, Education, and Economics.[40] Clinton said, "He has a record of delivering results in both the private and public sectors, forging partnerships around the world, especially in Africa and Asia, and developing innovative solutions in global health, agriculture, and financial services for the poor."[40]
Despite some early press predictions,[33] in general Clinton's departmental staff has avoided the kind of leaks and infighting that troubled her 2008 presidential campaign.[35] One possibly lingering line of internal tension was resolved in early 2011 when State Department spokesperson P. J. Crowley resigned after making personal comments about in-captivity leaker Chelsea Manning (then known as Bradley Manning) and her treatment by the Department of Defense.[41] In other changes, Jacob Lew left in late 2010 to join the White House as Office of Management and Budget and was replaced as Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources by Thomas R. Nides (Lew would eventually become White House Chief of Staff and then the pick for U.S. Treasury Secretary for Obama's second term),[34] and Steinberg left in mid-2011 and was replaced as Deputy Secretary by career diplomat William J. Burns.
Early themes and structural initiatives
During the transition period, Clinton sought to build a more powerful State Department.[42] She began a push for a larger international affairs budget and an expanded role in global economic issues.[42] She cited the need for an increased U.S. diplomatic presence, especially in Iraq where the U.S. Defense Department had conducted diplomatic missions.[42] U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates agreed with her, and also advocated larger State Department budgets.[29] Indeed, the two, and their respective departments, would have a productive relationship, unlike the often fraught relations between State and Defense and their secretaries seen in prior administrations.[43]
In the Obama administration's proposed 2010 United States federal budget of February 2009, there was a proposed 9.5 percent budget increase for the State Department and other international programs, from $47.2 billion in fiscal year 2009 to $51.7 billion in fiscal year 2010.[44][45] By the time of Clinton's May 2009 testimony before the United States Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, numbers had been restated following rounds of general federal budget cuts,[46] and the proposed fiscal year 2010 budget request for the State Department and USAID was $48.6 billion, a 7 percent increase.[47] That became the amount of increase that was obtained.[48]
Clinton also brought a message of departmental reform to the position, especially in regarding foreign aid programs as something that deserves the same status and level of scrutiny as diplomatic initiatives.[29]
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrives at the State Department on her first day greeted by a standing room only crowd of Department employees.
Clinton spent her initial days as Secretary of State telephoning dozens of world leaders.[49] She said the world was eager to see a new American foreign policy and that, "There is a great exhalation of breath going on around the world. We've got a lot of damage to repair."[49] She did indicate that not every past policy would be repudiated, and specifically said it was essential that the six-party talks over the North Korean nuclear weapons program continue.[50][51] Clinton re-emphasized her views during her first speech to State Department employees when she said, "There are three legs to the stool of American foreign policy: defense, diplomacy, and development. And we are responsible for two of the three legs. And we will make clear, as we go forward, that diplomacy and development are essential tools in achieving the long-term objectives of the United States. And I will do all that I can, working with you, to make it abundantly clear that robust diplomacy and effective development are the best long-term tools for securing America's future."[52] Clinton also soon visited the United States Agency for International Development, where she met employees and said they would be getting extra funds and attention during the new administration.[50]
She kept a low profile when diplomatic necessity or Obama's involvement required it, but maintained an influential relationship with the president and in foreign policy decisions.[53][54] Her first 100 days found her travelling over 70,000 miles (110,000 km), having no trouble adapting to being a team player subordinate to Obama, and gaining skills as an executive.[54][55] Nevertheless, she remained an international celebrity with a much higher profile than most Secretaries of State.[29] Her background as an elected official gave her insight into the needs and fears of elected officials of other countries.[29]
By the summer of 2009, there was considerable analysis and speculation in the media of what kind of role and level of influence Clinton had within the Obama administration, with a variety of assessments being produced.[12][56][57][58] A prominent mid-July speech to the Council on Foreign Relations reasserted her role;[56] she said, "We cannot be afraid or unwilling to engage. Our focus on diplomacy and development is not an alternative to our national security arsenal."[59]
In July 2009, Clinton announced a new State Department initiative, the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, to establish specific objectives for the State Department's diplomatic missions abroad.[60] The most ambitious of Clinton's departmental reforms, it is modeled after the Defense Department's Quadrennial Defense Review, which Clinton was familiar with from her days on the Senate Armed Services Committee.[61] The first such Review came out in December 2010. Entitled Leading Through Civilian Power, its 220 pages centered on the notion of elevating "civilian power" as a cost-effective way of responding to international challenges and defusing crises.[62][63][64] It also sought the elevation of U.S. ambassadors in coordinating work of all abroad-tasked U.S. agencies.[62] Clinton said of the underlying message, "Leading with civilians saves lives and money."[63] She also resolved to get Congress to approve the QDDR as a required part of the State Department planning process, saying, "I am determined that this report will not merely gather dust, like so many others."[63] Another theme of the report was the goal of empowering the female population in developing countries around the world; the QDDR mentioned women and girls some 133 times.[64] In part this reflected incorporation into the QDDR of the Hillary Doctrine, which stipulates that women's rights and violence against women around the world should be considered issues of national security to the United States.[65] In addition, by attempting to institutionalize her goals in this area, Clinton – along with Anne-Marie Slaughter and Melanne Verveer, who also worked heavily in these efforts – were hoping that her initiatives and concerns towards the empowerment of women would persist past Clinton's time in office as well as break a past pattern of chauvinism in the department.[64]
In September, Clinton unveiled the Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative at the annual meeting of her husband's Clinton Global Initiative.[66][67] The goal of the new initiative is to battle hunger worldwide on a strategic basis as a key part of U.S. foreign policy, rather than just react to food shortage emergencies as they occur.[67] The secretary said that "Food security is not just about food. But it is all about security: economic security, environmental security, even national security. Massive hunger poses a threat to the stability of governments, societies and borders."[66][67] The initiative seeks to develop agricultural economies, counter malnourishment, increase productivity, expand trade, and spur innovation in developing nations. Clinton said that women would be placed at the center of the effort, as they constitute a majority of the world's farmers.[67] The next month, to mark World Food Day, Clinton said, "Fighting hunger and poverty through sustainable agricultural development, making sure that enough food is available and that people have the resources to purchase it, is a key foreign policy objective of the Obama administration."[68]
During October 2009, Clinton said, "this is a great job. It is a 24/7 job"[69] and "this job is incredibly all-encompassing."[2] She said she never thought about if she were making the same foreign policy decisions as president, and had no intention of ever running for that office again.[2][69] While some friends and former advisers thought she was primarily saying that to focus attention on her current role and that she might change her mind about running for president in the future, others felt that she was genuinely content with the direction her career and life had taken and no longer had presidential ambitions.[70]
By the close of 2009 there were 25 female ambassadors posted by other nations to Washington; this was the highest number ever.[71] This was dubbed the "Hillary effect" by some observers: "Hillary Clinton is so visible" as secretary of state, said Amelia Matos Sumbana, the Mozambique Ambassador to the United States, "she makes it easier for presidents to pick a woman for Washington."[71] An added fact, of course, was that two other recent U.S. Secretaries of State were women, but Clinton's international fame from her days as First Lady of the United States made her impact in this respect the greatest of the group.[71]
Clinton also included in the State Department budget for the first time a breakdown of programs that specifically concerned themselves with the well-being of women and girls around the world.[64] By fiscal 2012, the department's budget request for such work was $1.2 billion, of which $832 million was for global health programs.[64] Additionally, she initiated the Women in Public Service Project, a joint venture between the State Department and the Seven Sisters colleges. The goal was to entice more women into entering public service, such that within four decades an equal number of men and women would be working in the field.[72]
One specific cause Clinton advocated almost from the start of her tenure was the adoption of cookstoves in the developing world, to foster cleaner and more environmentally sound food preparation and reduce smoke dangers to women. In September 2010, she announced a partnership with the United Nations Foundation to provide some 100 million such stoves around the world within the next ten years, and in subsequent travels she urged foreign leaders to adopt policies encouraging their use.[4]
In February 2010 testimony before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, Secretary Clinton complained about the slow pace of Senate confirmations of Obama's nominations to diplomatic positions, a number of which were delayed for political reasons and had been subject to holds by individual Republican senators.[73] Clinton said the problem damaged America's image abroad: "It became harder and harder to explain to countries, particularly countries of significance, why we had nobody in position for them to interact with."[73]
In 2009, and again in 2010 and 2011, Clinton stated that she was committed to serving out her full term as secretary, but would not commit to serving a second term should Obama be re-elected.[74]
She later used U.S. allies and what she called "convening power" to help keep the Libyan rebels unified as they eventually overthrew the Gaddafi regime.[75]
Throughout her tenure, Clinton has looked towards "smart power" as the strategy for asserting U.S. leadership and values, combining military strength with U.S. capacities in global economics, development aid, and technology.[75] In late 2011 she said, "All power has limits. In a much more networked and multipolar world we can't wave a magic wand and say to China or Brazil or India, 'Quit growing. Quit using your economies to assert power' … It's up to us to figure out how we position ourselves to be as effective as possible at different times in the face of different threats and opportunities."[75]
Clinton has also greatly expanded the State Department's use of social media, including Facebook and Twitter, both to get its message out and to help empower people vis à via their rulers. Clinton said, "We are in the age of participation, and the challenge … is to figure out how to be responsive, to help catalyze, unleash, channel the kind of participatory eagerness that is there." She has tried to institutionalize this change, by making social media a focus for foreign service officers and up to the ambassadorial level. (Other Clinton initiatives were run solely out of her office and were at risk of disappearing after she left office.) By late 2011, the department had 288 Facebook accounts and 192 Twitter feeds. The change was enough for daughter Chelsea Clinton to refer to the secretary as "TechnoMom".[75]
Regional issues and travels: 2009
Obama and Clinton speaking with one another at the 21st NATO summit in April 2009
In February 2009, Clinton made her first trip as secretary to Asia, visiting Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, and China on what she described as a "listening tour" that was "intended to really find a path forward."[76] She continued to travel heavily in her first months in office, often getting very enthusiastic responses by engaging with the local populace.[53][77]
In early March 2009, Clinton made her first trip as secretary to Israel.[78] During this time, Clinton announced that the US government will dispatch two officials to the Syrian capital to explore Washington's relationship with Damascus.[79] On March 5, Clinton attended the NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels.[80] At this meeting, Clinton proposed including Iran at a conference on Afghanistan. Clinton said the proposed conference could be held on March 31 in the Netherlands.[81] On March 6, a photo-op with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov intended to demonstrate the U.S. and Russia pressing the "reset button" on their relationship, in an effort to mend frayed ties, went a bit awry due to a mistranslation.[82] (The word the Americans chose, "peregruzka", meant "overloaded" or "overcharged", rather than "reset".) The episode became known as the Russian reset.[83]
During March 2009, Clinton prevailed over Vice President Joe Biden on an internal debate to send an additional 20,000 troops to Afghanistan.[84]
In June 2009, Clinton had surgery to repair a right elbow fracture caused by a fall in the State Department basement.[85] The painful injury and recuperation caused her to miss two foreign trips.[56][86] Nevertheless, during President Obama's trip without her to Russia, Clinton was named as co-coordinator, along with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, of a newly created U.S.-Russian Presidential Commission to discuss nuclear, economic, and energy and environmental policies relating to the two countries.[87]
Clinton returned to the diplomatic scene and responded to the ongoing 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis, in which plans for the Honduran fourth ballot box referendum had led to the 2009 Honduran coup d'état, and which was becoming Latin America's worst political crisis in some years.[88] In early July, she sat down with ousted President of Honduras Manuel Zelaya, who agreed on a U.S.-backed proposal to begin talks with the de facto Roberto Micheletti government.[89] Later, in September, Zelaya returned to the country, and President of Costa Rica Óscar Arias, who had become a mediator in the matter, as well as Clinton expressed hope that Zelaya's return could break the impasse with the Micheletti government. In particular, Clinton said, "Now that President Zelaya is back it would be opportune to restore him to his position under appropriate circumstances – get on with the election that is currently scheduled for November, have a peaceful transition of presidential authority and get Honduras back to constitutional and democratic order."[90] At the end of October, Clinton took a leading role in convincing Micheletti to accept a deal – which she termed an "historic agreement" – in which Zelaya would return to power in advance of general elections in which neither figure was running.[88] Micheletti said that Clinton had been insistent on this point: "I kept trying to explain our position to her, but all she kept saying was, 'Restitution, restitution, restitution.'"[88] That agreement broke down, despite efforts of the State Department to revive it,[91] and Clinton and the U.S. ended up supporting the winner of the 2009 Honduran general election, Porfirio Lobo Sosa, with Clinton characterizing the elections as "free and fair" and Lobo as holding a strong commitment to democracy and the rule of constitutional law.[92]
Clinton meets with President Hugo Chávez at the Summit of the Americas on April 19, 2009
Clinton co-chaired the high-level U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington, D.C. on July 27–28, 2009 and led the Strategic Track for the United States.
In August 2009, Clinton embarked on her longest trip yet, to a number of stops in Africa.[93] On August 10, 2009, at a public event in Kinshasa, a Congolese student asked her what her husband, "Mr Clinton", thought of a Chinese trade deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Clinton looked irritated at the question and replied, "Wait, you want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not the secretary of state, I am. So you ask my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband." The incident was played in newsrooms around the world. Clinton aides suggested there might have been a mistranslation, but that was not the case; however the student had later apologized to her, saying he had meant to ask what "Mr Obama" thought.[94]
In October 2009, Clinton's intervention – including juggling conversations on two mobile phones while sitting in a limousine[95] – overcame last-minute snags and saved the signing of an historic Turkish–Armenian accord that established diplomatic relations and opened the border between the two long-hostile nations.[96][97]
Clinton with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani during an October 2009 visit to Islamabad.
In late October 2009, Clinton travelled to Pakistan, where she had staged a memorable visit in 1995 while First Lady.[29] Her arrival was followed within hours by the 28 October 2009 Peshawar bombing; in response, Clinton said of those responsible, "They know they are on the losing side of history but they are determined to take as many lives with them as their movement is finally exposed for the nihilistic, empty effort that it is."[98] In addition to meeting with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani, she also staged numerous public appearances.[29][35] In those, she let students, talk show hosts, and tribal elders repeatedly complain about and criticize American foreign policy and American actions.[29][35] Occasionally, she pushed back in a more blunt fashion than usual for diplomats, explicitly wondering why Pakistan had not been more successful in combating al Qaeda "if they wanted to."[35] Member of Parliament and government spokesperson Farahnaz Ispahani said, "In the past, when the Americans came, they would talk to the generals and go home. Clinton's willingness to meet with everyone, hostile or not, has made a big impression – and because she's Hillary Clinton, with a real history of affinity for this country, it means so much more."[29]
On the same trip, Clinton visited the Middle East, in an effort to restart the Israeli–Palestinian peace process.
In November 2009, Secretary Clinton led the U.S. delegation at the 20th anniversary celebrations of the fall of the Berlin Wall.[99] There, she said: "Our history did not end the night the wall came down, it began anew. … To expand freedom to more people, we cannot accept that freedom does not belong to all people. We cannot allow oppression defined and justified by religion or tribe to replace that of ideology."[100]
In December 2009, Clinton attended the Copenhagen United Nations Climate Change Conference, where she pushed forward a last-minute proposal of significant new amounts of foreign aid to help developing countries deal with the effects of global warming, in an attempt to unstick stuck negotiations and salvage some sort of agreement at the conference.[101][102] The secretary said, "We're running out of time. Without the accord, the opportunity to mobilize significant resources to assist developing countries with mitigation and adaptation will be lost."[101] The amount of aid she proposed, $100 billion, was in the modest terms of the Copenhagen Accord that was agreed to by the summit.[103]
Secretary Clinton finished the year with very high approval ratings.[104] She also narrowly edged out former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in being America's most-admired woman, per a Gallup finding.[105]
Secretary Clinton met with Celso Amorim, Foreign Minister of Brazil, in March 2010 at the Palácio do Itamaraty in Brasília
In January 2010, Secretary Clinton cut short a trip to the Asia-Pacific region in order to see firsthand the destructive effects of the 2010 Haiti earthquake and to meet with President of Haiti René Préval.[106] Clinton said she would also evaluate the relief effort and help evacuate some Americans. She stressed that her visit was designed not to interfere with ongoing efforts: "It's a race against time. Everybody is pushing as hard as they can."[106] The Clintons had a special interest in Haiti going back decades, to their delayed honeymoon there[107] up to Bill Clinton being the United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti at the time of the earthquake.
In a major speech on January 21, 2010, Clinton, speaking on behalf of the U.S., declared that "We stand for a single Internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas", while highlighting how "even in authoritarian countries, information networks are helping people discover new facts and making governments more accountable."[108] She also drew analogies between the Iron Curtain and the free and unfree Internet.[109] Her speech, which followed a controversy surrounding Google's changed policy toward China and censorship, appears to mark a split between authoritarian capitalism and the Western model of free capitalism and Internet access.[109][110] Chinese officials responded strongly, saying Clinton's remarks were "harmful to Sino-American relations" and demanded that U.S. officials "respect the truth", and some foreign policy observers thought that Clinton had been too provocative.[109] But the White House stood behind Clinton, and demanded that China provide better answers regarding the recent Chinese cyberattack against Google.[111] Clinton's speech garnered marked attention among diplomats, as it was the first time a senior American official had clearly put forth a vision in which the Internet was a key element of American foreign policy.[111]
By early 2010, the Obama administration's efforts towards forging a new relationship with Iran had failed to gain headway, and the U.S. adopted a policy of adopting international sanctions against it and isolating it diplomatically in order to curtail the that country's nuclear program.[112] This was a policy more in line with Clinton's thinking and went back to disagreements she and Obama had had during the 2008 presidential campaign.[112] Clinton was put in charge of rallying support in the United Nations for these sanctions[112] and spent considerable time over the following months and years doing so.[4][113] At times Clinton suggested the possibility of military action against Iran should economic and diplomatic actions fail to deter it from its nuclear ambitions.[113]
In February 2010, Clinton made her first visit to Latin America as secretary. The tour would take her to Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Costa Rica and Guatemala and Argentina. She first visited Buenos Aires and talked to Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. They discussed Falkland Islands sovereignty and the issue of oil in the Falklands.[114] Clinton said that "We would like to see Argentina and the United Kingdom sit down and resolve the issues between them across the table in a peaceful, productive way."[114] Clinton offered to help facilitate such discussions, but did not agree to an Argentinian request that she mediate such talks.[114][115] Within 12 hours of Clinton's remarks, Downing Street categorically rejected a U.S. role: "We welcome the support of the secretary of state in terms of ensuring that we continue to keep diplomatic channels open but there is no need for [direct involvement]."[115] Clinton then went on to Santiago, Chile to witness the aftereffects of the 2010 Chile earthquake and to bring some telecommunications equipment to aid in the rescue and recovery efforts.[116]
In April 2010, there was a flurry of speculation that Clinton would be nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by Justice John Paul Stevens' retirement, including a plug from ranking Senate Judiciary Committee member Orrin Hatch.[117][118] The notion was quickly quashed by the White House, which said, "The president thinks Secretary Clinton is doing an excellent job as secretary of state and wants her to remain in that position."[117] A State Department spokesperson said that Clinton "loves her present job and is not looking for another one."[118]
By mid-2010, Clinton and Obama had clearly forged a good working relationship without power struggles; she was a team player within the administration and a defender of it to the outside, and was careful to make sure that neither she nor her husband would upstage him.[72][119] He in turn was accommodating to her viewpoints and in some cases adopted some of her more hawkish approaches.[119] She met with him weekly, but did not have the close, daily relationship that some of her predecessors had had with their presidents, such as Condoleezza Rice with George W. Bush, James Baker with George H. W. Bush, or Henry Kissinger with Richard Nixon.[119] Nevertheless, he had trust in her actions.[4]
During an early June 2010 visit to Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, Clinton dealt with questions at every stop about the recently passed and widely controversial Arizona SB 1070 anti-illegal immigration law, which had damaged the image of the U.S. in Latin America.[120] When answering a question from local television reporters in Quito about it, she said that President Obama was opposed to it and that "The Justice Department, under his direction, will be bringing a lawsuit against the act."[120] This was the first public confirmation that the Justice Department would act against the law;[120] a month later, it became official as the lawsuit United States of America v. Arizona. While at a hotel bar in Lima, she completed an agreement with a representative of China over which companies could be specified in a UN resolution sanctioning the nuclear program of Iran.[95] Returning to SB 1070, in August 2010 she included the dispute over it in a report to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, as an example to other countries of how fractious issues can be resolved under the rule of law.[121]
Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates tour the DMZ on July 21, 2010.
In July 2010, Clinton visited Pakistan for the second time as secretary, announcing a large new U.S. economic assistance package to that country as well as a U.S.-led bilateral trade agreement between Pakistan and Afghanistan.[122] She then traveled to Afghanistan for the Kabul Conference on the situation there, during which President Hamid Karzai vowed to implement much-promised legal, political, and economic reforms in exchange for a continued Western commitment there.[123] Clinton said that despite the scheduled U.S. drawdown there in 2011, the U.S. has "no intention of abandoning our long-term mission of achieving a stable, secure, peaceful Afghanistan. Too many nations – especially Afghanistan – have suffered too many losses to see this country slide backward."[123] She then went on to Seoul and the Korean Demilitarized Zone where she and Defense Secretary Robert Gates met with South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan and Minister of National Defense Kim Tae-young in a '2+2 meeting' to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Korean War. There she said that the U.S. experience in staying in Korea for decades had led to a successful result, which might also be applicable to Afghanistan.[124] Finally, she went to Hanoi, Vietnam, for the ASEAN Regional Forum, wrapping up what The New York Times termed "a grueling trip that amounted to a tour of American wars, past and present".[124] There she injected the U.S. into the long-running disputes over the sovereignty of the Paracel Islands and Spratly Islands, much to the displeasure of the Chinese who view the South China Sea as part of their core interests, by saying "The United States has a national interest in freedom of navigation, open access to Asia's maritime commons and respect for international law in the South China Sea."[124]
By this time, Secretary Clinton was quite busy with another role of a kind, "M.O.T.B." as she wrote in State Department memos, making reference to her being the mother of the bride in daughter Chelsea Clinton's July 31, 2010, wedding to Marc Mezvinsky.[125] She confessed in an interview in Islamabad less than two weeks before the wedding that she and her husband were both nervous wrecks, and that "You should assume that if he makes it down the aisle in one piece it's going to be a major accomplishment. He is going to be so emotional, as am I."[126] The event itself gained a large amount of media attention.[125]
In a September 2010 speech before the Council on Foreign Relations, Clinton emphasized the continuing primacy of American power and involvement in the world, declaring a "new American moment".[127] Making reference to actions from reviving the Middle East talks to U.S. aid following the 2010 Pakistan floods, Clinton said that "The world is counting on us" and that "After years of war and uncertainty, people are wondering what the future holds, at home and abroad. So let me say it clearly: The United States can, must, and will lead in this new century."[127]
With Democrats facing possible large losses in the 2010 midterm elections and President Obama struggling in opinion polls, idle speculation in Washington media circles concerning Obama's chances in the 2012 presidential election led to the notion that Clinton would take over as Obama's vice-presidential running mate in 2012 to add to his electoral appeal.[128] Some versions of this idea had Vice President Biden replacing her as Secretary of State if Obama won.[127][129] That it would ever happen was unlikely,[130] but did not stop the chatter; when the job swap idea was mentioned in public to Clinton, she smiled and shook her head.[127] A couple of months later, Obama shot down the idea, saying the notion was "completely unfounded" and that "they are both doing outstanding jobs where they are."[131] (In late 2011, however, with Obama's popularity on the decline, White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley did conduct some research into the idea of Clinton replacing Biden, but the notion was dropped when the results showed no appreciable improvement for Obama.[132])
Clinton at the Department of State building with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and U.S. Special Envoy George J. Mitchell, at the start of direct talks on September 2, 2010
Over the summer of 2010, the stalled peace process in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict was potentially revived when the various parties involved agreed to direct talks for the first time in a while.[133] While President Obama was the orchestrator of the movement, Secretary Clinton had gone through months of cajoling just to get the parties to the table, and helped convince the reluctant Palestinians by getting support for direct talks from Egypt and Jordan.[95][133] She then assumed a prominent role in the talks; Speaking at a September 2 meeting at the State Department between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, she acknowledged that, "We've been here before, and we know how difficult the road ahead will be."[134] Her role in the ongoing talks would be to take over from U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George J. Mitchell when discussions threatened to break down.[95] The talks were generally given little chance to succeed, and Clinton faced the history of many such past failures, including the near miss of her husband at the 2000 Camp David Summit.[95] Nevertheless, her prominent role in them thrust her further into the international spotlight and had the potential to affect her legacy as secretary.[95][135]
In October, Clinton embarked on a seven-nation tour of Asia and Oceania. In New Zealand she signed the "Wellington Declaration", which normalized the diplomatic and military relationship between it and the United States.[136] The signing marked twenty-five years after the United States suspended ANZUS treaty obligations with New Zealand in the wake of the USS Buchanan incident.
Clinton maintained her high approval ratings during 2010.[137] An aggregation of polls taken during the late portion or all of 2010 showed that Clinton (and her husband as well) had by far the best favorable-unfavorable ratings of any key contemporary American political figure.[138]
In late November, WikiLeaks released confidential State Department cables, selections of which were then published by several major newspapers around the world. The leak of the cables led to a crisis atmosphere in the State Department, as blunt statements and assessments by U.S. and foreign diplomats became public.[139] Clinton led the damage control effort for the U.S. abroad, and also sought to bolster the morale of shocked Foreign Service officers.[139] In the days leading up to the publication of the cables, Clinton called officials in Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Britain, France, Afghanistan, Canada, and China to alert them to the pending disclosures.[139] She did note that some foreign leaders were accepting of the frank language of the cables, with one telling her, "Don't worry about it. You should see what we say about you."[139][140] She harshly criticized WikiLeaks, saying: "Let's be clear: This disclosure is not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests. It is an attack on the international community – the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity."[139] The State Department went into immediate "war room" mode in order to deal with the effects of the disclosures, and began implementing measures to try to prevent another such leak from happening in the future.[140]
A few of the cables released by WikiLeaks concerned Clinton directly: they revealed that directions to members of the foreign service had gone out in 2009 under Clinton's name to gather biometric details on foreign diplomats, including officials of the United Nations and U.S. allies.[141] These included Internet and intranet usernames, e-mail addresses, web site URLs useful for identification, credit card numbers, frequent flier account numbers, work schedules, and other targeted biographical information in a process known as the National Humint Collection Directive.[142][143] State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said that Clinton had not drafted the directive and that the Secretary of State's name is systematically attached to the bottom of cables originating from Washington;[144] it was unclear whether Clinton had actually seen them.[145] The guidance in the cables was actually written by the CIA before being sent out under Clinton's name, as the CIA cannot directly instruct State Department personnel.[146][147] The disclosed cables on the more aggressive intelligence gathering went back to 2008 when they went out under Condoleezza Rice's name during her tenure as Secretary of State.[143] The practice of the U.S. and the State Department gathering intelligence on the U.N. or on friendly nations was not new,[145] but the surprise in this case was that it was done by other diplomats rather than intelligence agencies, and that the specific types of information being asked for went beyond past practice and was not the kind of information diplomats would normally be expected to gather.[143][146][147][148] In any case, the instructions given in these cables may have been largely ignored by American diplomats as ill-advised.[147] Responding to calls from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and a few others that Clinton possibly step down from her post due to the revelation, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, "I think that is absurd and ridiculous. I think Secretary of State Clinton is doing a wonderful job."[149]
At this early December 2010 summit in Kazakhstan, Clinton dealt with the fallout from the United States diplomatic cables leak.
On December 1, Clinton flew to a summit of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in Astana, Kazakhstan.[140][150] There she would encounter some fifty leaders who were subjects of embarrassing comments in the leaks, including President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev.[140] A Kazakh official said that during such encounters, Clinton "kept her face. She didn't run away from difficult questions."[140] During the encounters she emphasized that the leaked cables did not reflect official U.S. policy but rather were just instances of individual diplomats giving unfiltered feedback to Washington about what they saw happening in other countries.[140] The situation led to some leaders turning her strong remarks about Internet freedom earlier in the year back against her.[140] The OSCE summit also featured a meeting between Secretary Clinton and Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations.[150] In an attempt to repair the strain caused by the Humint spying relevations, Clinton expressed regret to Ban for the disclosures, but did not make an apology per se.[148][150] A U.N. statement relayed that Ban thanked Clinton "for clarifying the matter and for expressing her concern about the difficulties created."[148]
Upon the December 13 death of veteran U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke (who had initially fallen ill during a meeting with her), Clinton presided over a spontaneous gathering of some forty senior State Department personnel and Holbrooke aides at George Washington University Hospital, reminiscing about him.[151] At a memorial service for him days later, both Clinton and her husband praised Holbrooke's work, and she said, "Everything that we have accomplished that is working in Afghanistan and Pakistan is largely because of Richard."[152] As it happened, however, Holbrooke had developed poor relations with the White House during his time as Afghanistan envoy, and Clinton's vision of him forging an agreement in that country that modeled the success of his prior Dayton Accords (that resolved the Bosnian War) were unrealized.[153]
On December 22, 2010, Secretary Clinton returned to the floor of the Senate during the lame-duck session of the 111th Congress to witness the ratification, by a 71–26 margin, of the New START treaty.[154] Clinton had spent the several days beforehand repeatedly calling wavering senators and seeking to gain their support.[155]
As the year closed, Clinton was again named by Americans in Gallup's most admired man and woman poll as the woman around the world they most admired; it was her ninth win in a row and fifteenth overall.[156]
Clinton and President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff on Inauguration of Dilma Rousseff, January 1, 2011
Secretary Clinton began the year 2011 abroad, attending the Inauguration of Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, having been sent by President Obama to represent the U.S.[157][158] Rousseff was the first woman to rule that country. While there, she ran into Venezuelan ruler and U.S. antagonist Hugo Chávez, but the two had a pleasant exchange; Chávez said "She had a very spontaneous smile and I greeted her with the same effusiveness."[159]
Secretary Clinton conversing with United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan prior to a Gulf Cooperation Council meeting in Doha in January 2011.
In mid-January, Clinton made a four-country trip to the Middle East, visiting Yemen, Oman, The United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.[160] Speaking at a conference in Doha, she criticized Arab governments' failure to move more rapidly vis à vis reform in unusually blunt language, saying, "In too many places, in too many ways, the region's foundations are sinking into the sand. The new and dynamic Middle East that I have seen needs firmer ground if it is to take root and grow everywhere."[160] Her visit to Yemen, the first such visit by a Secretary of State in 20 years, found her focusing on the dangers of terrorism emanating from that country.[161] An impromptu tour around the walled old city of Sana'a found Clinton being cheered by onlooking schoolchildren.[161] A trip and fall while boarding the departing airplane left Clinton unhurt but news services making predictable witticisms.[162]
When the 2011 Egyptian protests began, Clinton was in the forefront of the administration's response.[163] Her initial public assessment on January 25 that the government of President Hosni Mubarak was "stable" and "looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people"[164] soon came under criticism for being tepid and behind the curve of developing events, although others agreed that the U.S. could not be out front in undermining the government of a long-term ally.[163] By the next day, Clinton was criticizing the Egyptian government's blocking of social media sites.[164] By January 29, Obama had put Clinton in charge of sorting out the administration's so-far confused response to developments.[165] During the frenetic day of January 30, she combined appearances on all five Sunday morning talk shows – where she stated publicly for the first time the U.S.'s view that there needed to be an "orderly transition" to a "democratic participatory government"[164] and a "peaceful transition to real democracy", not Mubarak's "faux democracy"[166] – with a flight to Haiti and back to mark the anniversary of its terrible earthquake, all the while engaging in conference calls again regarding Egypt.[167]
The Egyptian protests became the most critical foreign policy crisis so far for the Obama administration, and Obama came to increasingly rely upon Clinton for advice and connections.[165] Clinton had known Mubarak for some twenty years, and had formed a close relationship with Egyptian First Lady Suzanne Mubarak by supporting the latter's human rights work.[165] Clinton originated the idea of sending Frank G. Wisner as an emissary to Cairo, to tell Mubarak not to seek another term as the country's leader.[165] As Mubarak's response to the protests became violent in early February, Clinton strongly condemned the actions taking place, especially those against journalists covering the events, and urged new Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman to conduct an official investigation to hold those responsible for the violence accountable.[168][169] When Wisner baldly stated that Mubarak's departure should be delayed to accommodate an orderly transition to another government, Clinton rebuked him, but shared a bit of the same sentiment.[170] Mubarak did finally step down on February 11 as the protests became the 2011 Egyptian revolution. Clinton said that the U.S. realized that Egypt still had much work and some difficult times ahead of it.[171] In mid-March, Clinton visited Egypt and indicated support for an Egyptian move towards democracy, but she avoided specific issues of U.S. aid and when elections should take place.[172]
President Obama was reportedly unhappy with U.S. intelligence agencies following their failure to foresee the 2010–2011 Tunisian uprising and the downfall of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali as well as the Egyptian protests.[173] Responding to criticism that the State Department had failed to see the developments in Egypt coming, Clinton defended the U.S. in an interview on Al-Arabiya, saying "I don't think anybody could have predicted we'd be sitting here talking about the end of the Mubarak presidency at the time that this all started."[171]
Reflecting on not just the situation in Tunisia and Egypt but also on the, the 2011 Yemeni protests, and the 2011 Jordanian protests, Clinton said at a February 5 meeting of the Quartet on the Middle East, "The region is being battered by a perfect storm of powerful trends. … This is what has driven demonstrators into the streets of … cities throughout the region. The status quo is simply not sustainable." She said that while transition to democracy could be chaotic – and free elections had to be accompanied by free speech, a free judiciary, and the rule of law in order to be effective – in the end "free people govern themselves best".[174] The transformations highlighted that traditional U.S. foreign policy in the region had sided with rulers who suppressed internal dissent but provided stability and generally supported U.S. goals in the region.[175] When the monarchy's response to the 2011 Bahraini protests turned violent, Clinton urged a return to the path of reform, saying that violence against the protesters "is absolutely unacceptable … We very much want to see the human rights of the people protected, including right to assemble, right to express themselves, and we want to see reform."[175] At the same time, she said that the U.S. "cannot tell countries what they are going to do [and] cannot dictate the outcomes."[175] As the situation in Bahrain lingered on and continued to have episodes of violence against protesters, Clinton said in mid-March, "Our goal is a credible political process that can address the legitimate aspirations of all the people of Bahrain … Violence is not and cannot be the answer. A political process is. We have raised our concerns about the current measures directly with Bahraini officials and will continue to do so."[176]
When the 2011 Libyan civil war began in mid-February and intensified into armed conflict with rebel successes in early March 2011, Clinton stated the administration's position that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi "must go now, without further violence or delay".[177] As Gaddafi conducted counterattacks against the rebels, Clinton was initially reluctant, as was Obama, to back calls being made in various quarters for imposition of a Libyan no-fly zone.[178][179] However, as the prospects of a Gaddafi victory and possible subsequent bloodbath that would kill many thousands emerged, and as Clinton travelled Europe and North Africa and found support for military intervention increasing among European and Arab leaders, she had a change of view.[178][179] Together with Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice and National Security Council figure Samantha Power, who were already supporting military intervention, Clinton overcame opposition from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, security advisor Thomas Donilon, and counterterrorism advisor John Brennan, and the administration backed U.N. action to impose the no-fly zone and authorize other military actions as necessary.[178][180] Clinton helped gained the financial and political support of several Arab countries,[178][181] in particular convincing Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan that a no-fly zone urged by the Arab League would not be sufficient and that air-to-ground attacks would be necessary.[75] Clinton then persuaded Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that his country should abstain on the UN resolution authorizing force against Gaddafi,[75] and Rice and Clinton played major roles in getting the rest of the United Nations Security Council to approve United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973.[178][181] Regarding whether the U.S. or some other ally would send arms to the anti-Gaddafi forces, Clinton said that this would be permissible under the resolution, but that no decision had yet been made on doing so.[182]
Clinton testified to Congress in March that the administration did not need congressional authorization for its military intervention in Libya or for further decisions about it, despite congressional objections from members of both parties that the administration was violating the War Powers Resolution.[183][184] During that classified briefing to Congress, she allegedly indicated that the administration would sidestep the Resolution's provision regarding a 60-day limit on unauthorized military actions.[185] Months later, she stated that, with respect to the military operation in Libya, the United States was still flying a quarter of the sorties, and the New York Times reported that, while many presidents had bypassed other sections of the War Powers Resolution, there was little precedent for exceeding the 60-day statutory limit on unauthorized military actions – a limit which the Justice Department had said in 1980 was constitutional.[186][187] The State Department publicly took the position in June 2011 that there was no "hostility" in Libya within the meaning of the War Powers Resolution, contrary to legal interpretations by the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel.[188][189] The State Department requested (but never received) express Congressional authorization.[189][190] The US House of Representatives voted to rebuke the administration for maintaining an American presence with the NATO operations in Libya, which they considered a violation of the War Powers Resolution.[191][192]
Secretary Clinton appearing on Nessma TV in Tunis in March 2011
While Clinton recognized some of the contradictions of U.S. policy towards turmoil in the Mideast countries, which involving backing some regimes while supporting protesters against others,[178] she was nevertheless passionate on the subject, enough so that Obama joked at the annual Gridiron Dinner that "I've dispatched Hillary to the Middle East to talk about how these countries can transition to new leaders — though, I've got to be honest, she's gotten a little passionate about the subject. These past few weeks it's been tough falling asleep with Hillary out there on Pennsylvania Avenue shouting, throwing rocks at the window."[193] In any case, Obama's reference to Clinton travelling a lot was true enough; by now she had logged 465,000 miles (748,000 km) in her Boeing 757, more than any other Secretary of State for a comparable period of time, and had visited 79 countries while in the office.[64] Time magazine wrote that "Clinton's endurance is legendary" and that she would still be going at the end of long work days even as her staff members were glazing out.[75] The key was her ability to fall asleep on demand, at any time and place, for power naps.[72]
Clinton also saw the potential political changes in the Mideast as an opportunity for an even more fundamental change to take place, that being the empowerment of women (something Newsweek magazine saw as Clinton's categorical imperative).[64] She made remarks to this effect in countries such as Egypt – "If a country doesn't recognize minority rights and human rights, including women's rights, you will not have the kind of stability and prosperity that is possible" – as well as in Yemen, where she spoke of the story of the present Nujood Ali and her campaign against forced marriage at a young age.[64] At home, Clinton was even more expansive, looking on a worldwide basis: "I believe that the rights of women and girls is the unfinished business of the 21st century. We see women and girls across the world who are oppressed and violated and demeaned and degraded and denied so much of what they are entitled to as our fellow human beings."[64] She also maintained that the well-being of women in other countries was a direct factor in American self-interest: "This is a big deal for American values and for American foreign policy and our interests, but it is also a big deal for our security. Because where women are disempowered and dehumanized, you are more likely to see not just antidemocratic forces, but extremism that leads to security challenges for us."[64] She subsequently elaborated upon this theme, saying "A lot of the work I do here in the State Department on women's or human-rights issues is not just because I care passionately – which I do – but because I see it as [a way] to increase security to fulfill American interests. These are foreign-policy and national-security priorities for me."[72]
In the midst of this turmoil, which also included Clinton pledging government-level support to Japan in the wake of the devastating 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami,[194] Clinton reiterated in a mid-March CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer during her post-revolution visit to Cairo's Tahrir Square that she had no interest in becoming Secretary of Defense or vice president or of running for president again.[195] She also explicitly said for the first time that she did not want to serve a second term as Secretary of State if President Obama is re-elected in 2012.[180][196] She stressed how much she regarded her current position: "Because I have the best job I could ever have. This is a moment in history where it is almost hard to catch your breath. There are both the tragedies and disasters that we have seen from Haiti to Japan and there are the extraordinary opportunities and challenges that we see right here in Egypt and in the rest of the region."[196] But reportedly she was weary at times from constant travelling, still not part of Obama's inner circle, and looking forward to a time of less stress and the chances to write, teach, or work for international women's rights.[180] She was not bound by her statements, and Blitzer for one suspected she would change her mind.[195] In any case, she remained popular with the American public; her Gallup Poll favorability rating rose to 66 percent (against 31 percent unfavorable), her highest mark ever save for a period during the Lewinsky scandal thirteen years earlier.[197] Her favorability was 10 to 20 percentage points higher than those for Obama, Biden, or Gates, and reflected in part the high ratings that secretaries of state sometimes get.[197]
Secretary Clinton was among those in the White House Situation Room getting real-time updates on the May 2011 mission to kill Osama bin Laden.
Throughout early 2011, the CIA thought there was a good chance it had discovered the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, and the White House held a final high-level discussion on April 28 about whether to go ahead with a raid to get him, and if so, what kind of mission to undertake. Clinton supported the option to send Navy SEALs in, believing that the U.S. could not afford to ignore this chance and that getting bin Laden was so important that it outweighed any risks.[198] Following the successful May 1–2, 2011, U.S. mission to kill Osama bin Laden at his hideout compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and the resulting criticism from various Americans that Pakistan had not found, or had let, bin Laden hide in near plain sight, Clinton made a point of praising Pakistan's past record of helping the U.S. hunt down terrorists: "Our counter-terrorism cooperation over a number of years now, with Pakistan, has contributed greatly to our efforts to dismantle al-Qaeda. And in fact, cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound in which he was hiding. Going forward, we are absolutely committed to continuing that cooperation."[199] Clinton then played a key role in the administration's decision not to release photographs of the dead bin Laden, reporting that U.S. allies in the Middle East did not favor the release and agreeing with Secretary Gates that such a release might cause an anti-U.S. backlash overseas.[200]
A June 2011 trip to Africa found Clinton consoling longtime aide Huma Abedin after the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal broke.[201] She also emphatically denied published reports that she was interested in becoming the next president of the World Bank, which would need a successor to follow Robert Zoellick after the end of his term in mid-2012.[202][203] A different suggestion, from wanting-to-depart U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner that Clinton replace him at that position, gained some traction in parts of the White House before economic and budget issues intensified and President Obama convinced Geithner to stay on.[204]
By July, Clinton was assuring China and other foreign governments that the ongoing U.S. debt ceiling crisis would not end with the U.S. going into sovereign default[205] (a prediction that turned true when the Budget Control Act of 2011 was passed and signed the day before default loomed). She spent much of that summer in an eventually unsuccessful attempt to persuade the Palestinian National Authority not to attempt to gain membership in the United Nations at its September 2011 General Assembly meeting.[206]
Clinton continued to poll high, with a September 2011 Bloomberg News poll finding her with a 64 percent favorable rating, the highest of any political figure in the nation.[207] A third of those polls said that Clinton would have been a better president than Obama, but when asked the likelihood she would stage a campaign against the president, she said, "It's below zero. One of the great things about being secretary of state is I am out of politics. I am not interested in being drawn back into it by anybody."[208]
Following the October 2011 announcement by Obama that the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq would complete by the close of that same year, Clinton forcefully defended the decision as emanating from an agreement originally signed with Iraq under the Bush administration and as evidence that Iraq's sovereignty was real, and said that despite the absence of military forces, the U.S. was still committed to strengthening Iraq's democracy with "robust" diplomatic measures.[209] She also praised the effectiveness of Obama's foreign policy in general, implicitly pushing back on criticism from those running for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.[209]
Clinton specifically pointed to the death of Muammar Gaddafi and the conclusion of the Libyan intervention.[209] She had been active during the final stages of the Libyan rebellion, and via Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, had urged the rebels forces to unify and avoid factional conflicts with each other.[75] She visited Tripoli in October 2011 and, in private, was somewhat guarded about Libya's future following the rebel success.[75] (A video of her exclaiming "Wow" upon first reading on her BlackBerry of Gaddafi's capture achieved wide circulation.[210]) Over the next few years, the aftermath of the Libyan Civil War became characterized by instability, two rival governments, and a slide into status as a failed state; it became a refuge for extremists and terrorist groups, such as ISIL, and spurred a massive refugee crisis as immigrants crossed the Mediterranean to southern Europe.[211] The wisdom of the intervention would continue to be debated, with President Obama maintaining that the intervention had been worthwhile but that the United States and Europe underestimated the ongoing effort needed to rebuild Libyan society afterward;[212] former U.S. Representative to NATO Ivo Daalder stating that the limited goals of the intervention had all been met but that the Libyan people had not seized their opportunity to form a better future and that post-intervention military involvement by the West would have been counterproductive;[213] and scholar Alan J. Kuperman (along with some other scholars and human rights groups) writing that the intervention had been based on the faulty notion that Libya had been headed towards humanitarian disaster when in fact it was not and was thus the intervention was "an abject failure, judged even by its own standards".[214][215] Kuperman's view that Gaddafi son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi held promise as a Western-style political reformer was in turn disputed by former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Derek Chollet, who stated that such faith was misplaced and that Libyans were resistant to any post-intervention security mechanism and to many rebuilding programs.[216] Clinton said in her 2014 memoir that she had been "worried that the challenges ahead would prove overwhelming for even the most well-meaning transitional leaders. If the new government could consolidate its authority, provide security, use oil revenues to rebuild, disarm the militias, and keep extremists out, then Libya would have a fighting chance at building a stable democracy. If not, then the country would face very difficult challenges translating the hopes of a revolution into a free, secure, and prosperous future."[211]
Secretary Clinton cancelled a planned trip to the United Kingdom and Turkey to be with her mother, Dorothy Rodham, who died in Washington on November 1, 2011.[217]
In November 2011, Clinton declared, in both a speech at the East–West Center and in an article published in Foreign Policy magazine, that the 21st century would be "America's Pacific century".[218][219] The term played on the notion of the "Pacific Century". Clinton said, "It is becoming increasingly clear that, in the 21st century, the world's strategic and economic center of gravity will be the Asia-Pacific, from the Indian subcontinent to western shores of the Americas."[218] The declaration was part of the Obama administration's "pivot to Asia" after the focus of the decade of the 2000s on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.[218][219]
When the 2011–2012 Russian protests had begun in late 2011, in response to the Russian legislative election, 2011, Clinton had been outspoken about the need for legitimate democratic processes there, saying in December 2011: "The Russian people, like people everywhere, deserve the right to have their voices heard and their votes counted. And that means they deserve free, fair, transparent elections and leaders who are accountable to them."[220] She added that "Russian voters deserve a full investigation of electoral fraud and manipulation." In return, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin denounced Clinton, accusing her of backing Russian protesters financially and in fact precipitating their actions: "They heard this signal and with the support of the U.S. State Department began their active work."[221] When Putin won the Russian presidential election, 2012 in March 2012, some in the State Department wanted to denounce Russian process again, but they were overruled by the White House, and Clinton stated simply that "The election had a clear winner, and we are ready to work with President-elect Putin."[4]
Secretary Clinton met with Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on December 2, 2011, as part of her historic visit to that country.
In early December 2011, Clinton made the first visit to Burma by a U.S. secretary of state since John Foster Dulles's in 1955, as she met with Burmese leaders as well as opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and sought to support the 2011 Burmese democratic reforms.[222] Clinton said that due to the direct and indirect communications she had had with Suu Kyi over the years, "it was like seeing a friend you hadn't seen for a very long time even though it was our first meeting."[223] The outreach to Burma attracted both praise and criticism, with Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen saying it "sends the wrong signal to the Burmese military thugs" but others saying the visit combined idealism with respect to reform and realpolitik with respect to keeping Burma out of the direct Chinese sphere of influence.[224] Clinton had had to overcome internal administration opposition from the White House and Pentagon, as well as from Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, to make the move, eventually making a personal appeal to Obama and gaining his approval.[153] Regarding whether the Burmese regime would follow up on reform pledges, Clinton said, "I can't predict what's going to happen, but I think it certainly is important for the United States to be on the side of democratic reform … This is a first date, not a marriage, and we'll see where it leads."[223] She continued to address rights concerns in a December 2011 speech a few days later before the United Nations Human Rights Council, saying that the U.S. would advocate for gay rights abroad and that "Gay rights are human rights" and that "It should never be a crime to be gay."[225] This itself drew criticism from some American social conservatives.[224]
As the year closed, Clinton was again named by Americans in Gallup's most admired man and woman poll as the woman around the world they most admired; it was her tenth win in a row and sixteenth overall.[226]
Secretary Clinton and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu following their bilateral meeting at the Department of State, February 13, 2012.
In a State Department town hall meeting on January 26, 2012, Clinton indicated her desire to remove herself from "the high wire of American politics" after twenty tiring years of being on it and added, "I have made it clear that I will certainly stay on until the president nominates someone and that transition can occur."[227] She also indicated that she had not watched any of the 2012 Republican Party presidential debates.[227]
As the Syrian Civil War continued and intensified with the February 2012 bombardment of Homs, the U.S. sought a UN Security Council resolution that backed an Arab League plan that would urge Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to relinquish powers to the vice presidential level and permit a unity government to form.[228] However, Russia and China vetoed the resolution, an action that Clinton characterized as a "travesty".[228] After the failure of the effort, Clinton warned that Syria could degenerate into "a brutal civil war" and called for a "friends of democratic Syria" group of like-minded nations to promote a peaceful and democratic solution to the situation and pressure Syria accordingly.[228][229] At a meeting in Tunis of the consequent Friends of Syria Group, Clinton again criticized the actions of Russia and China as "distressing" and "despicable", and predicted that the Assad regime would meet its end via a military coup.[230] Later, during the summer of 2012, she repeated her criticism of those two countries.[231] At that time, Clinton developed a plan with CIA Director David H. Petraeus to send arms to, and perform training of, vetted groups of Syrian rebels, using the assistance of a neighboring state.[153] The plan also had the support of Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Joint Chiefs chair General Martin E. Dempsey.[232] Reluctant to become entangled in the Syrian situation and in an election campaign, Obama rejected the idea.[153]
Clinton has visited 112 countries during her tenure, the most of any Secretary of State in U.S. history.[233][234][235]
In February 2012, a spokesman for Clinton denied again that Clinton wanted the President of the World Bank job, saying, "She has said this is not happening. Her view has not changed."[236]
At a keynote speech before the International Crisis Group, the secretary brought her view regarding the empowerment of women specifically into the area of peacemaking, saying that women's multifaceted ties with a community make them more compelled to concern about social and quality of life issues that prosper under peacetime conditions. Furthermore, women identify more with minority groups, being discriminated against themselves. Thus, "Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world. It is past time for women to take their rightful place, side by side with men, in the rooms where the fates of peoples, where their children's and grandchildren's fates, are decided."[72] She also continued to believe that empowerment of women would continue to grow as people saw that it would lead to economic growth.[237]
In April 2012, an Internet meme "Texts from Hillary", hosted on Tumblr and based around a photograph of Clinton sitting on a military plane wearing sunglasses and using a mobile phone, imagined the recipients and contents of her text messages. It became suddenly popular and earned the endorsement of Clinton herself, before being brought to an end by its creators.[238][239] Obama himself took note of the meme's popularity, in a humorous exchange that revealed the ease the two now had around one another.[240] Around the same time, a photograph taken during the 6th Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, showed Clinton with a group of colleagues relaxing, drinking Águila beer from a bottle and dancing, at a local nightclub.[241] The episode gained front-page attention from the New York Post and illustrated how Clinton was enjoying the job. [4] Regarding her ongoing popularity, Clinton said, "There's a certain consistency to who I am and what I do, and I think people have finally said, 'Well, you know, I kinda get her now.'"[72] One long-time Washington figure summarized the situation by simply saying, "There's no coin in criticizing her anymore."[72] At the same time, her fashion choices gained renewed attention, with her hair grown long and sometimes pulled back with scrunchies.[72] Public commentary on Clinton's hair was now a tradition across twenty years, but as one female State Department traveller said, "As a chick, it's a big pain in the butt. The weather is different, and you're in and out of the plane. [The staff] gets off that plane looking like garbage most days, but she has to look camera ready. She said the reason she grew her hair long was that it's easier. She has options."[72] Clinton professed she was past the point of concern on the matter: "I feel so relieved to be at the stage I'm at in my life right now, […] because if I want to wear my glasses, I'm wearing my glasses. If I want to pull my hair back, I'm pulling my hair back."[242] In any case, Clinton showed a much more relaxed attitude vis a vis the press than in past eras.[72]
A late April/early May 2012 trip to China found Clinton in the middle of a drama involving blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng. He had escaped house arrest and, after finding his way to the Embassy of the United States, Beijing, requested an arrangement whereby he could stay in China with guarantees for his safety. After a deal towards that end fell through, he requested a seat on Clinton's plane when she flew back to the U.S. After further negotiations in parallel with the existing agenda of Clinton's trip, Chen left for the U.S. after Clinton's departure.[243] Clinton had negotiated personally with senior Chinese diplomat Dai Bingguo in order to get the deal back in place.[153] Despite an environment that had, as one aide said, "exploded into an absolute circus", Clinton managed to find a path for the U.S. that kept China from losing face and kept the overall agenda of the meetings intact.[4]
Following the June 2012 killing of high-ranking al Qaeda figure Abu Yahya al-Libi in one of the U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan, Clinton defended the action, saying "We will always maintain our right to use force against groups such as al Qaeda that have attacked us and still threaten us with imminent attack. In doing so, we will comply with the applicable law, including the laws of war, and go to extraordinary lengths to ensure precision and avoid the loss of innocent life."[244] Indeed, beginning with her 2009 trip to Pakistan, Clinton had faced questions about U.S. drone strikes, which she refused to comment much upon at the time.[245] Behind the scenes, Clinton was in fact one of the leading administration proponents of continuing and expanding the strikes there and elsewhere.[246] She did, however, side with U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter in 2011 when he requested more input into, and control over, the U.S. "kill list" selections for that country.[247]
In June 2012, Clinton set down in Riga, Latvia, which represented the 100th country she had visited during her tenure, setting a mark for secretaries of state; the record had been Madeleine Albright with 96.[248] In July 2012, Clinton became the first U.S. Secretary of State to visit Laos since John Foster Dulles in 1955.[249] She held talks with Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong and Foreign Minister Thongloun Sisoulith in Vientiane.[250]
Also in July 2012, Clinton visited Egypt for the first time since Mohammed Morsi became the first democratically elected president of the country.[251] As she arrived in the country, her convoy was met with a protest and had shoes, tomatoes and bottled water thrown at it, although nothing hit either Clinton or her vehicle.[250] Protesters also chanted "Monica, Monica", in reference to the Lewinsky scandal.[252][253] She also faced conspiracy theories (in a country that tended towards them) that the U.S. was secretly aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.[254]
An advocate of ending Somalia's transitional phase on time,[255] Clinton showed support in August for the new Federal Government of Somalia, which took over as the permanent government.[256][257]
President Obama and Secretary Clinton honor the Benghazi victims at the Transfer of Remains Ceremony held at Andrews Air Force Base on September 14, 2012.
On September 11, 2012, an attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi took place, resulting in the death of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. The next day, Clinton also made a statement describing the perpetrators as "heavily armed militants" and "a small and savage group – not the people or government of Libya."[258] Clinton also responded to the notion that the attack had been related to the reactions in Egypt and elsewhere to the anti-Islamic online video known as Innocence of Muslims, saying: "Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind."[259] She and President Obama appearing together in the White House Rose Garden the same day and vowed to bring the attackers to justice.[260][261] On September 14 the remains of the slain Americans were returned to the U.S. Obama and Clinton attended the ceremony; in her remarks, Clinton said, "One young woman, her head covered and her eyes haunted with sadness, held up a handwritten sign that said 'Thugs and killers don't represent Benghazi nor Islam.'"[262]
The attack, and questions surrounding the U.S. Government's preparedness for it, and explanations for what had happened afterward, became a political firestorm in the U.S., especially in the context of the ongoing presidential election.[263] The State Department had previously identified embassy and personnel security as a major challenge in its budget and priorities report.[264] On the September 20, Clinton gave a classified briefing to U.S. Senators,[265] which several Republican attendees criticized, angry at the Obama administration's rebuff of their attempts to learn details of the Benghazi attack, only to see that information published the next day in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.[266] She did announce the formation of an Accountability Review Board panel, chaired by longtime diplomat Thomas R. Pickering and vice-chaired by retired Admiral and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen, to investigate the attack from the State Department's viewpoint.[267]
On October 15, regarding the question of preparedness, Clinton said she was accountable: "I take responsibility. I'm in charge of the State Department's 60,000-plus people all over the world, 275 posts. … I take this very personally. So we're going to get to the bottom of it, and then we're going to do everything we can to work to prevent it from happening again."[263] Regarding the different explanations afterward for what had happened, she said, "In the wake of an attack like this, in the fog of war, there's always going to be confusion. And I think it is absolutely fair to say that everyone had the same intelligence. Everyone who spoke tried to give the information that they had. As time has gone on, that information has changed. We've gotten more detail, but that's not surprising. That always happens."[263]
On November 6, 2012, Obama was re-elected for a second term as president. Clinton said shortly before the election that she would stay on until her successor was confirmed, but that "this is not an open-ended kind of time frame."[268] Despite her continuing to express a lack of interest, speculation continued about Clinton as a possible candidate in the 2016 presidential election.[237][268] A poll taken in Iowa, the first state in the nomination process, showed that in a hypothetical 2016 caucuses contest, Clinton would have 58 percent support, with Vice President Biden coming in next at 17 percent.[269]
Later in November, Clinton traveled to Jersusalem, the West Bank, and Cairo, meeting with leaders Benjamin Netanyahu, Mahmoud Abbas and Mohamed Morsi respectively, in an effort to stop the 2012 Gaza conflict. On November 21, she participated in a joint appearance with Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr to announce that a cease-fire agreement had been reached between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.[270] When the 2012 Egyptian protests against Morsi broke out shortly thereafter, Clinton said that it showed how a dialogue between both sides was immediately needed on how to reshape that nation's constitution.[271]
In mid-December, Clinton fell victim to a stomach virus contracted on a trip to Europe. She subsequently became very dehydrated and then fainted, suffering a mild concussion. As a result, she cancelled another trip and scratched an appearance at scheduled Congressional hearings on the Benghazi matter.[234][272] A few conservative figures, including Congressman Allen West and Ambassador to the UN John R. Bolton, accused Clinton of fabricating her illness to avoid testifying, but a State Department spokesperson said that was "completely untrue" and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham denounced the allegations.[273][274]
On December 19, the Pickering–Mullen Accountability Review Board report on the Benghazi matter was released.[275] It was sharply critical of State Department officials in Washington for ignoring requests for more guards and safety upgrades, and for failing to adapt security procedures to a deteriorating security environment.[276] It explicitly criticized the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs:[277] "Systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department … resulted in a special mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place."[275] Four State Department officials were removed from their posts as a consequence, including Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security Eric J. Boswell (who resigned completely), a deputy assistant secretary for embassy security, Charlene R. Lamb, and a deputy assistant secretary for North Africa, Raymond Maxwell.[277] The report did not criticize more senior officials in the department; Pickering said: "We fixed it at the assistant secretary level, which is, in our view, the appropriate place to look, where the decision-making in fact takes place, where, if you like, the rubber hits the road."[277] Clinton said in a letter to Congress that she accepted the conclusions of the Pickering–Mullen report,[276] and a State Department task force was formed to implement some sixty action items recommended by the report.[278] On December 20, the Deputy Secretary of State, William J. Burns, and the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, Thomas R. Nides, testified in her place before two Congressional committees, and said that many of the report's recommendations would be in place before year-end.[278] Clinton planned to testify herself in January.[274]
The Benghazi matter also had an effect on Clinton's successor as Secretary of State. Obama's first choice was Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice,[279] but she came under heavy criticism from Congressional Republicans for what they felt were incorrect or deceptive statements in the aftermath of the attack, and by mid-December she withdrew her name from consideration.[280] Obama then nominated Senator John Kerry for the position instead.[281] By one report, Clinton had preferred Kerry over Rice all along anyway.[282] Although still not well enough to attend the December 21 announcement of Kerry's nomination, Clinton was described by Obama as being "in good spirits" and, in a statement, praised Kerry as being of the "highest caliber".[281]
Clinton was scheduled to return to work the week of December 31,[283] but then on December 30 was admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital for treatment and observation after a blood clot related to the concussion was discovered.[284] On December 31 it was announced that the clot was behind her ear near her brain, specifically a right transverse sinus venous thrombosis, that she was being treated with anticoagulants, that she had not suffered any neurological damage, and that she was expected to make a full recovery.[285]
Final days of tenure
Secretary Clinton is welcomed back to work at the State Department on January 7, 2013
On January 2, 2013, Clinton was released from the hospital.[286] She returned to work at the State Department on January 7, when co-workers welcomed her back with a standing ovation and a joke gift of a football helmet featuring the department's seal.[287] It was her first normal public appearance in a month.[287]
Secretary Clinton receives a football jersey with 112, the number of countries she visited during her tenure
The illness did, however, put an end to her days of travel in the job.[288][289] She finished with 112 countries visited, making her the most widely traveled secretary of state in history.[288] Her total of 956,733 air miles ended up falling short of Condoleezza Rice's record for total mileage.[288] That total, 1,059,207, was bolstered late in Rice's tenure by repeated trips to the Middle East.[235][290] Clinton traveled during 401 days, with 306 of those spent in actual diplomatic meetings, and spent the equivalent of 87 full days on airplanes.[288][289] Compared to other recent secretaries, Clinton traveled more broadly, with fewer repeat visits to certain countries.[289]
Secretary Clinton gives her farewell remarks to State Department employees on her last day in office, February 1, 2013
On January 23, Clinton finally gave more than five hours of testimony on the Benghazi matter before hearings of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee.[291] She said with a choking voice, "For me, this is not just a matter of policy, it's personal. I stood next to President Obama as the Marines carried those flag-draped caskets off the plane at Andrews. I put my arms around the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters."[292] She again accepted formal responsibility for the departmental security lapses that led to the attack and deaths, but in explanation did not accept personal blame for them.[293] She said, "I feel responsible for the nearly 70,000 people who work for the State Department. But the specific security requests pertaining to Benghazi, you know, were handled by the security professionals in the department. I didn't see those requests. They didn't come to me. I didn't approve them. I didn't deny them."[293] She did acknowledge that she had supported keeping the Benghazi consulate open after an earlier debate about its deteriorating security, but said she had assumed the security personnel involved would address any issues with it.[293]
Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican associated with the Tea Party movement, questioned her repeatedly on a different aspect, whether Ambassador to the UN Rice had misled the public after the attacks. This line drew the fieriest response from Clinton, who with voice raised and fists shaking, responded, "With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night decided they'd go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, senator."[291] Other Republicans also attacked Clinton, with Representative Jeff Duncan accusing her of "national security malpractice" and Senator Rand Paul saying that the president should have dismissed her from her job for having failed to read security-related cables coming into the State Department[291] (she had said there are over a million cables that come into the department and they are all formally addressed to her). Senator John McCain said that while "It's wonderful to see you in good health and as combative as ever", he was unsatisfied with her answers.[293]
Clinton also took the opportunity to address the ongoing conflict in Mali and the rest of Northern Africa, saying "this Pandora's Box if you will" of side effects from the Arab Spring had opened a new security challenge for the U.S.[291] Specifically, she said "we cannot permit northern Mali to become a safe haven."[291]
The next day, January 24, Clinton introduced John Kerry before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as hearings were held on his nomination to succeed her. She called him "the right choice to carry forward the Obama Administration's foreign policy", and called out his testimony before the same committee in 1971 in opposition to the Vietnam War as "speaking hard truths about a war that had gone badly off track."[294]
At both public appearances, as well as at the second inauguration of Barack Obama, Clinton wore glasses (instead of her usual contact lens), which upon closer examination were seen to have Fresnel prisms attached to them, likely to counteract lingering blurred or double vision from her concussion.[295] Use of special glasses was confirmed by the State Department, which said, "She'll be wearing these glasses instead of her contacts for a period of time because of lingering issues stemming from her concussion."[292]
On January 27, 60 Minutes aired a joint interview with Obama and Clinton. The interview was Obama's idea and was the first he had done with a member of his administration.[296] In it, Obama consistently praised Clinton's performance in the position, saying "I think Hillary will go down as one of the finest secretary of states we've had."[297] Both said the relationship between them had been very comfortable, and that getting past their 2008 primary campaign battles had not been difficult for them personally.[296] Regarding her health, Clinton said, "I still have some lingering effects from falling on my head and having the blood clot. But the doctors tell me that will all recede. And so, thankfully, I'm looking forward to being at full speed."[297]
On January 29, Clinton held a global and final town hall meeting, the 59th of her tenure.[298] Also on January 29, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved Kerry's nomination unanimously and the full Senate confirmed the nomination by a 94–3 vote.[299] In her final public speech, on January 31 before the Council on Foreign Relations, Clinton returned to the themes of "smart power".[300] She suggested that a new architecture was needed for relations within the world, giving an analogy of Frank Gehry compared to ancient Greek architecture: "Some of his work at first might appear haphazard, but in fact, it's highly intentional and sophisticated. Where once a few strong columns could hold up the weight of the world, today we need a dynamic mix of materials and structures."[301] She added, echoing Madeleine Albright,[302] "… we are truly the indispensable nation, it's not meant as a boast or an empty slogan. It's a recognition of our role and our responsibilities. That's why all the declinists are dead wrong. It's why the United States must and will continue to lead in this century even as we lead in new ways."[300][303]
Clinton's final day as secretary was February 1, 2013, when she met with Obama to hand in her letter of resignation and later gave farewell remarks in a meeting with employees at State Department headquarters.[304]
Overall themes and legacy
While Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State was popular at the time among the public and praised by President Obama, observers have noted that there was no signature diplomatic breakthrough during it nor any transformative domination of major issues in the nature of Dean Acheson, George Marshall, or Henry Kissinger.[305][306] The intractable issues when she entered office, such as Iran, Pakistan, Arab-Israeli relations, and North Korea, were still that way when she left.[305] Many of Clinton's initiatives in the "smart power" realm will take much more time to evaluate as to their effect.[305] Aaron David Miller, a vice president at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said that "She's coming away with a stellar reputation that seems to have put her almost above criticism. But you can't say that she's really led on any of the big issues for this administration or made a major mark on high strategy."[305] Michael E. O'Hanlon, a Brookings Institution analyst, said that, "Even an admirer, such as myself, must acknowledge that few big problems were solved on her watch, few victories achieved. [She has been] more solid than spectacular."[305] Others have been more highly critical of her tenure as Secretary; in a 2015 book entitled Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America, former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz Cheney argue that Clinton's tenure, and the Obama administration's foreign policy generally, weakened U.S. standing in its international relations and deviated sharply from 70 years of well-established, bipartisan U.S. foreign and defense policy that the United States had generally adhered to since World War II.[307] Others, however, such as Eric Schmidt disagree, and have argued that Clinton was "perhaps the most significant secretary of state since" Acheson.[4] All agreed on her celebrity; as one unnamed official said, "She's the first secretary who's also been a global rock star. It's allowed her to raise issues on the global agenda in a way that no one before her has been able to do."[305]
Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama discuss matters in 2009, at a picnic table on the grounds of the White House
The divisions between Obama and Clinton that many observers had originally predicted, never happened.[4] Indeed, a writer for The New York Times Magazine declared that "Obama and Clinton have instead led the least discordant national-security team in decades, despite enormous challenges on almost every front."[4] In part, this was because Obama and Clinton both approached foreign policy as a largely non-ideological, pragmatic exercise.[4] Nevertheless, there were limitations to her influence: Much of the handling of the Middle East, Iraq, and Iran was done by the White House or Pentagon during her tenure,[153] and on some other issues as well, policy-making was kept inside the White House among Obama's inner circle of advisors.[306] There were also differences of opinion. Clinton failed to persuade Obama to arm and train Syrian rebels in 2012, but overcame initial opposition to gain approval of her visit to Burma in 2011.[153] Clinton's initial idea of having special envoys under her handling key trouble spots fell apart due to various circumstances.[305] Clinton did find bureaucratic success in edging out the U.S. Commerce Department, by having the State Department take a lead role in sales pitches in favor of U.S. companies.[308] In doing so, she helped negotiate international deals for the likes of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Westinghouse Electric Company.[308] Clinton believed, more than most prior secretaries, that the commercial aspects of diplomacy and the promotion of international trade were vital to American foreign policy goals.[308]
Obama later referred to the Libya intervention when questioned about his worst mistake.[309] Obama asserted that he had been reluctant to intervene but that intervention had been championed by Clinton and Susan Rice.[309] Obama cited the lack of preparation the Administration had made for a post-Gaddafi Libya, lack of followup by European countries and greater-than-expected intertribal divisions in Libya. [310] However, Clinton's stance is that the intervention was beneficial because it avoided another Syria-like scenario.[310]
Clinton's background as an elected politician showed in her touch for dealing with people, in remembering personal connections, in visiting State Department staff when overseas, and in sympathizing with the dilemmas of elected foreign leaders.[4] At least until the Benghazi matter, she retained personal support among a number of Republicans; in mid-2012, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said, "I think she's represented our nation well. She is extremely well respected throughout the world, handles herself in a very classy way and has a work ethic second to none."[4]
Especially in the Mideast turmoil but elsewhere as well, Clinton saw an opportunity to advance one of the central themes of her tenure, the empowerment and welfare of women and girls worldwide.[64] Moreover, she viewed women's rights and human rights as critical for U.S. security interests,[72] as part of what has become known as the "Hillary Doctrine".[311] Former State Department director and coordinator Theresa Loar said in 2011 that, "I honestly think Hillary Clinton wakes up every day thinking about how to improve the lives of women and girls. And I don't know another world leader who is doing that."[312] In turn, there was a trend of women around the world finding more opportunities, and in some cases feeling safer, as the result of her actions and visibility.[313]
A mid-2012 Pew Research study of public opinions found that Clinton was viewed positively in Japan and most European countries in terms of people having confidence that she would do the right thing in world affairs.[314] She received mixed marks in China, Russia, and some Central and South American countries, and low marks in Muslim countries, on this question.[314] Overall, Clinton's attempts to improve the image of America in Muslim countries did not find any immediate success due to many factors, including the unpopularity of drone strikes in Pakistan and elsewhere.[314] Perceptions of the U.S. in those countries declined during her tenure according to a Pew Research, which found that only 15 percent of Muslims had a favorable impression of the U.S. in 2012, compared to 25 percent in 2009.[314] Specifically in Pakistan, only 12 percent of Pakistanis had a favorable impression of the U.S. in 2012, compared to 16 percent in 2009,[315] and only 3 percent had confidence in Clinton compared to 37 percent not.[314]
The first secretary of state to visit countries such as Togo and East Timor, Clinton believed that in-person visits were more important than ever in the digital age. As she said in remarks shortly before leaving office, "I have found it highly ironic that, in today's world, when we can be anywhere virtually, more than ever people want us to show up, actually. Somebody said to me the other day, 'I look at your travel schedule. Why Togo? Why the Cook Islands?' No secretary of state had ever been to Togo before. Togo happens to be on the U.N. Security Council. Going there, making the personal investment, has a real strategic purpose."[316]
Post-tenure issues
Financial accounting, document requests, Clinton Foundation
According to the Office of the Inspector General report made in 2014, the State Department's records failed to properly account for some $6 billion in contracts over the prior six years, including around $2 billion for the department's mission in Iraq. The report said, "The failure to maintain contract files adequately creates significant financial risk and demonstrates a lack of internal control over the Department's contract actions," and added that investigators and auditors had found "repeated examples of poor contract file administration" which it had characterized as having been one of the department's "major management challenges" for several years.[317]
During 2014, the State Department failed to turn over documents to the Associated Press that it had asked for through a Freedom of Information Act request based on the possibility of Clinton running for president in 2016. The department said it "does its best to meet its FOIA responsibilities" but that it was under a heavy administrative load for such requests.[318]
The ethics agreement between the State Department and Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation that was put into force at the beginning of the secretary's tenure came under scrutiny from the news media during early 2015. A Wall Street Journal report found that the Clinton Foundation had resumed accepting donations from foreign governments once Secretary Clinton's tenure had ended.[319] A Washington Post inquiry into donations by foreign governments to the Clinton Foundation during the secretary's tenure found a six cases where such governments continued making donations at the same level they had before Clinton became secretary, which was permissible under the agreement, and also one instance of a new donation, $500,000 from Algeria in January 2010 for earthquake relief in Haiti, that was outside the bounds of the continuation provision and should have received a special ethics review but did not. The Post noted that the donation "coincided with a spike" in lobbying efforts by Algeria of the State Department regarding their human rights record but that during 2010 and 2011 the Department still issued human rights reports critical of Algeria's restrictions on freedom of assembly, women's rights and labor rights that also pointed to instances of extrajudicial killings, corruption, and lack of transparency in the government.[320] A Politico analysis of State Department documents found that the department approved virtually all of Bill Clinton's proposed speaking engagements, even when they lacked sufficient information about the valuation of those talks or links between them and possible subsequent donations to the Clinton Foundation.[321]
From 2009 to 2013, the Russian atomic energy agency Rosatom acquired Uranium One, a Canadian company with global uranium mining stakes including 20 percent of the uranium production capacity in the United States. The strategically sensitive acquisition required the approval of the Canadian government as well as a number of U.S. governmental bodies including the State Department. In April 2015, the New York Times reported that, during the acquisition, the family foundation of Uranium One's chairman made $2.35 million in donations to the Clinton Foundation. Also during this time, Bill Clinton received a $500,000 payment from Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment bank whose analysts were praising Uranium One stock, for making speech in Moscow.[322] The Foundation donations were not publicly disclosed by the Clinton Foundation or the State Department, despite a prior agreement to do so, in part due to taking advantage of the donations going through a Canadian affiliate of the Foundation.[323] A FactCheck.org analysis stated that while the reports raised "legitimate questions about the Clinton Foundation and its donations," the reports "presented no evidence that the donations influenced Clinton's official actions."[324] Asked about the issue in June 2015, the former secretary said of the State Department's role in the approval, "There were nine government agencies that that had to sign off on that deal. I was not personally involved because that's not something [the] Secretary of State did."[325]
Use of private email server
Main article: Hillary Clinton email controversy
In early March 2015, a New York Times report revealed that throughout her time as Secretary of State, Clinton used her own private email server, rather than government-issued departmental ones[326] Further investigation revealed that the day of her first Senate hearing to become Secretary of State, Clinton, or an associate, purchased a private email server under the pseudonym "Eric Hoteham".[327][328] The server was set up in her home in Chappaqua, New York.[329] The matter gained widespread public attention due to concerns about the security of the mails she sent and received and whether they were exposed to hacking and surveillance; the availability and preservation of the mails for Freedom of Information Act requests and the archival historical record; and whether her action had violated any federal laws, regulations, or guidelines.[330][331] Also in question was whether the use of the private email server violated State Department transparency protocols.[332]
In response to the attention, Clinton said she had in December 2014 turned over 55,000 pages of e-mails to the State Department following their request and that she now wanted them made public.[331] These 55,000 printed pages accounted for 30,490, or slightly less than half, of the 62,320 emails that Clinton had sent or received on her private email account during her time as secretary.[333] At a press conference Clinton said she had set up the separate server as a matter of convenience so that she could carry one device and not two, but that in retrospect "it would have been better if I'd simply used a second email account and carried a second phone".[334] She said that she had sent mails to State Department employees on their government accounts, ensuring such mails would be preserved, but it then turned out that the department did not automatically or routinely save such mails.[335] After the revelations, questions were raised about whether Clinton, when she resigned in February 2013, had signed Form OF-109, a standard document declaring that she had turned over all work-related records. After searching, the State Department said it had "no record" that Clinton had signed the form, were "fairly certain" that she had not, and that it appeared neither of her two immediate predecessors as secretary had either.[336] According to the text of the form, it warns individuals signing it that falsification is subject to criminal penalties under Section 1001 of Title 18.[337]
A portion of the emails on Clinton's private server were emails sent in 2011 and 2012 by Sidney Blumenthal, a political supporter and campaign staffer who worked for the Clinton Foundation. Blumenthal prepared, from public and other sources, about 25 memos which he sent to Clinton during 2011 and 2012 which she shared through her aide, Jake Sullivan, with senior State Department personnel. In the form of intelligence briefings, the memos sometimes touted his business associates and, at times contained inaccurate information.[338][339]
In August 2015, it was reported that Clinton had personally paid a State Department staffer, Bryan Pagliano, who had previously served as IT director for Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, to maintain her private server while she was Secretary of State.[340][341] According to a Clinton campaign official, this ensured that taxpayer dollars would not be spent on a private server that was shared by Clinton, her husband and their daughter, as well as several aides to the former president.[340] On September 1, 2015, Pagliano's attorney sent letters to the House Select Committee on Benghazi, which had subpoenaed Pagliano, and to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which was inquiring about Pagliano's outside employment while a Federal employee, informing the committees that his client would invoke his constitutional Fifth Amendment rights not to answer any questions from the committees,[340][341] and on September 10, in a closed-door session before the Benghazi Committee, Pagliano personally appeared to invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to testify before the committee.[342]
Potential mis-handling of classified information
On July 23, 2015, The New York Times reported the existence of a June 2015, memorandum to the Justice Department from the Inspectors General of the Intelligence Community and the State Department regarding the presence of classified government information in emails from the personal email account Hillary Clinton used as Secretary of State.[343] A transmittal memorandum, written by State Dept. official Patrick F. Kennedy, said that, based on an assessment of a small sample of the contents of Mrs. Clinton's private account by the two Inspectors General, it was likely that the entire body of emails contained hundreds of instances of classified information.[343][344] In their joint statement, the inspectors general said that classified information in the emails had originated from U.S. intelligence agencies, such as the CIA and the NSA, and that it is illegal anyone to receive a classified document, or briefing, and then summarize or otherwise transmit that information in an unclassified email.[343][345]
Clinton and her campaign have reiterated that the information transmitted was not classified "at the time", but the inspectors general, as well as reporting by the New York Times and others, said that it, in fact, was classified at the time.[343][344][345] Information is considered classified if its disclosure would likely harm national security, and government procedures and protocols require that such information be sent or stored only on government computer networks with government safeguards.[343][345]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton%27s_tenure_as_Secretary_of_State
1,600 Classified Emails With Dozens Designated "Secret" or "Top Secret/SAP." — Obama Will Never Let Clinton Be Indicted or Charged Will Pardon Her — Trust — Issues — Turnout (TITs) — Will Determine Who Becomes Next President — Videos
Posted on February 20, 2016. Filed under: American History, Articles, Blogroll, Business, Communications, Computers, Crime, Crisis, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Elections, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Federal Government, Foreign Policy, government spending, history, Law, liberty, Life, Links, media, National Security Agency (NSA), National Security Agency (NSA_, Newspapers, People, Philosophy, Photos, Political Correctness, Politics, Press, Radio, Rants, Raves, Talk Radio, Television, Terrorism, Video, War, Wealth, Weapons, Wisdom, Work, Writing | Tags: 4 February 2016, America, articles, Audio, Breaking News, Broadcasting, capitalism, Cartoons, Charity, Citizenship, Clarity, Classical Liberalism, Classified Documents, Collectivism, Commentary, Commitment, Communicate, Communication, Concise, Convincing, Courage, Crimes, Culture, Current Affairs, Current Events, economic growth, economic policy, Economics, Education, Email Server, Emails, Evil, Experience, Faith, Family, FBI, Felonies, First, fiscal policy, free enterprise, freedom, freedom of speech, Friends, Give It A Listen, God, Good, Goodwill, Growth, Hillary Clinton, Hope, indicted, Individualism, Knowledge, liberty, Life, Love, Lovers of Liberty, monetary policy, MPEG3, News, Opinions, Pardon, Peace, Photos, Podcasts, Political Philosophy, Politics, President Barack Obama, Primaries, prosperity, Radio, Raymond Thomas Pronk, Representative Republic, Republic, Resources, Respect, rule of law, Rule of Men, Secret, Show Notes, Special Access Programs (SAP), Talk Radio, The Pronk Pops Show, The Pronk Pops Show 617, Top Secret, Trust -- Issues -- Turnout (TITs), Truth, Tyranny, U.S. Constitution, United States of America, Videos, Virtue, War, Wisdom |
Pronk Pops Show 614: January 29, 2016
Pronk Pops Show 600: January 8, 2016
Pronk Pops Show 597: December 21, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 589: December 9, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 583: November 30, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 575: November 16, 2015 (more…)
Is President Obama Sabotaging The Federal Bureau of Investigation Of Hillary Clinton's Handling of Classified Documents? American People Want To Know — Will Hillary Clinton Be Indicted or Nominated? Yes Hillary Will Be Indicted For Violation of 18 U.S. Code § 793 and §798 and §1924 — Biden Backup to Replace Hillary Clinton — California Governor Jerry Brown To Enter Race? — Videos
Posted on October 17, 2015. Filed under: American History, Blogroll, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), College, Communications, Computers, Congress, Corruption, Crime, Crisis, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Documentary, Education, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Federal Communications Commission, government spending, history, Homicide, Islam, Islam, Law, liberty, Life, Links, Literacy, Money, National Security Agency (NSA_, People, Philosophy, Photos, Police, Politics, Presidential Candidates, Security, Shite, Spying, Strategy, Sunni, Talk Radio, Terrorism, Video, War, Wealth, Welfare, Wisdom, Writing | Tags: 16 October 2015, 18 U.S. Code § 793 and §798 and §1924, 22 October 2015 Hearings, America, articles, Audio, Benghazi, Breaking News, Broadcasting, capitalism, Cartoons, Charity, Citizenship, Clarity, Classical Liberalism, Classified Documents, Collectivism, Commentary, Commitment, Communicate, Communication, Concise, Congress, Convincing, Courage, Crimes, Culture, Current Affairs, Current Events, economic growth, economic policy, Economics, Education, Emails, Evil, Experience, Faith, Family, FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Felonies, First, fiscal policy, free enterprise, freedom, freedom of speech, Friends, Give It A Listen, God, Good, Goodwill, Growth, Hillary Clinton, Hope, Individualism, Knowledge, liberty, Life, Love, Lovers of Liberty, monetary policy, MPEG3, National Security Agency, News, NSA, Opinions, Peace, Photos, Podcasts, Political Philosophy, Politics, President Barack Obama, prosperity, Radio, Raymond Thomas Pronk, Representative Republic, Republic, Resources, Respect, rule of law, Rule of Men, Show Notes, Talk Radio, The Pronk Pops Show, The Pronk Pops Show 555, Trey Gowd, Truth, Tyranny, U.S. Constitution, United States of America, Videos, Virtue, War, Wisdom |
Story 1: Is President Obama Sabotaging The Federal Bureau of Investigation Of Hillary Clinton's Handling of Classified Documents? American People Want To Know — Will Hillary Clinton Be Indicted or Nominated? Yes Hillary Will Be Indicted For Violation of 18 U.S. Code § 793 and §798 and §1924 — Biden Backup to Replace Hillary Clinton — California Governor Jerry Brown To Enter Race? — Videos
FBI Probe: Hillary Clinton Could Face 10 Years In Prison
Obama Calls Clinton Secret Server A "Mistake," Says Questions About Her Actions "Legitimate"
Firebrand Trey Gowdy Dismantles Ex-Staffer's Claim That Benghazi Committee Is Partisan
MSNBC Panel: Even The President Says Hillary Clinton's Emails Are A Legitimate Issue
Top Republican: Hillary Clinton still withholding Benghazi emails
Hillary Clinton's Favorability Numbers at the Lowest Since 1992
Obama: Criticism Of Hillary Clinton's Private Email 'Ginned Up' Because Of Politics
FBI FURY: OBAMA SABOTAGING HILLARY INVESTIGATION
Rand Paul: Clinton Fired an ambassador for using a private email server; 10-16-2015
Obama Tells '60 Minutes' Hillary Clinton Made Email 'Mistake'
MSNBC: CIA's Most Closely Guarded Information Passed Through Clinton Email
Wife of Imprisoned CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling Speaks Out October 15, 2015
Unprecedented News Conference: Thursday, October 15, 2015, National Press Club, Washington
Jeffrey Sterling was convicted under the Espionage Act as a source for New York Times reporter James Risen's book State of War. He began serving his three-and-a-half year prison sentence in June. His wife's news conference was the first time the spouse of a CIA whistleblower has made such an appearance.
National Press Club President John Hughes opened the conference, which featured:
* Thomas Drake
* Delphine Halgand
* Ray McGovern
* Jesselyn Radack
Clinton's Deleted Emails On 'Cloud' Server
The saga over Hillary Clinton's private use of an email server continues. The FBI is now investigating deleted emails from a "cloud" storage system. On Friday October 2, 2015 Platte River and Clinton's officials gave written consent for Datto Inc. (a Connecticut-based tech company) to release Clinton's emails to the FBI. Deputy Press Secretary at the Republican National Committee, Raffi Williams, discusses what this means for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. OANN's Matt Schuck has this story.
Uh Oh! Hillary's Emailgate Just Got Worse! MUCH WORSE! FBI Expands…
FBI's Hillary email net expands
Judge Says Hillary Clinton's Private Emails Were Classified, Violated Policy – America's Newsroom
Could Hillary Clinton face prosecution over email scandal?
Minute Memo #174 – Clinton Hiding Benghazi Emails
Newly released emails of Hillary Clinton show new legal trouble up ahead.
According to investigative reporter Sharyl Attkinsson, Clinton deliberately hid information on the Benghazi terror attack in blatant violation of Freedom of Information Act requests.
According to Attkinsson:
"The newly-released batch of Hillary Clinton emails provides further proof that Freedom of Information (FOI) law has been blatantly violated.
The documents include material directly responsive to a FOI request I made back in 2012 after the Benghazi terrorist attacks on the U.S. compounds.
However, the material was not produced at the time, as required by law.
Once again, there appears to be nobody who holds government officials and agencies accountable for their routine violation of this law. So the infractions occur frequently and with impunity.
If nobody polices our government officials and agencies–if they are above the law–then how does a lawful society function?"
Judge Napolitano: FBI Will Recommend Hillary Clinton Be Indicted
Mark Levin: Hillary Clinton in Violation of Espionage Act • Hannity • 9/2/15 •
Newsmax Prime | Alan Dershowitz talks about the FBI investigating Hillary Clinton's email server
Hillary Jokes About FBI Investigation
September 24, 2015: Sen. Tom Cotton questions NSA Director about Clinton Emails
'Under Penalty of Perjury': Judge Nap on Latest Twist in Hillary's Email Scandal
Judge Andrew Napolitano appeared on "The Kelly File" tonight to weigh in on the latest developments in the Hillary Clinton email scandal.
A federal judge has demanded that Clinton and two of her most trusted aides go on the record "under penalty of perjury" regarding the private email server Clinton used during her time as Secretary of State.
Judge Napolitano noted that when the government suspected that Gen. Petraeus kept secure documents in his home, they raided it.
In Clinton's case, Judge Napolitano pointed out, the government doesn't suspect she has secure documents. It's a known fact.
Not only that, but she gave a thumb drive with that secure information to her lawyer, Judge Napolitano added.
"Mrs. Clinton should be treated like anybody else who is obviously violating the law by failing to secure classified documents and keeping them in insecure venues not approved by the government," Judge Napolitano stated.
He said that the federal judge's use of the phrase "under penalty of perjury" is extremely significant, because it reminds Clinton that for the first time, she will be under oath.
Morrell confirms at least one foreign country have what was on Hillary's email server.
Hillary Emails – Trey Gowdy Lays It Out
13 hours in Benghazi FULL VERSION INTERVIEW 5 parts combined
White House Covers Up Benghazi Terrorist Attack (INCLUDING NEW REPORTS)
CIA Contractor: I Told State Department Rep. Benghazi Was Terrorist Attack
White House Covers Up Benghazi Terrorist Attack – New BBC Science Documentary HD
Obama LIED About Benghazi Attack!!! (Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer Interview)
CIA Gun Runner: Hillary's Benghazi Crimes Confirmed
SYRIA Retired General Suspects A US Covert Operation For Running Libya Arms To Syria
Treason Exposed! Obama Used Benghazi Attack to Cover Up Arms Shipments to Muslim Brotherhood
Source: FBI probe of Clinton email focused on 'gross negligence' provision
By Catherine Herridge, Pamela Browne
Three months after Hillary Clinton's use of a private email address and server while secretary of state was referred to the FBI, an intelligence source familiar with the investigation tells Fox News that the team is now focused on whether there were violations of an Espionage Act subsection pertaining to "gross negligence" in the safekeeping of national defense information.
Under 18 USC 793 subsection F, the information does not have to be classified to count as a violation. The intelligence source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity citing the sensitivity of the ongoing probe, said the subsection requires the "lawful possession" of national defense information by a security clearance holder who "through gross negligence," such as the use of an unsecure computer network, permits the material to be removed or abstracted from its proper, secure location.
Subsection F also requires the clearance holder "to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer. "A failure to do so "shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."
The source said investigators are also focused on possible obstruction of justice. "If someone knows there is an ongoing investigation and takes action to impede an investigation, for example destruction of documents or threatening of witnesses, that could be a separate charge but still remain under a single case," the source said. Currently, the ongoing investigation is led by the Washington Field Office of the FBI.
A former FBI agent, who is not involved in the case, said the inconsistent release of emails, with new documents coming to light from outside accounts, such as that of adviser Sidney Blumenthal, could constitute obstruction. In addition, Clinton's March statement that there was no classified material on her private server has proven false, after more than 400 emails containing classified information were documented.
Clinton and her team maintain the use of a private account was allowed, and the intelligence was not classified at the time, but later upgraded. The latter claim is disputed by the intelligence community Inspector General, who represents the agencies involved, which concluded the information was classified from the start.
One of Clinton's primary defenses is that the emails containing classified information, did not carry classification markings, but a leading national security defense attorney says that is no excuse under the law.
"The fact that something's not marked or that the person may not know that it was classified would not be relevant at all in a prosecution under the Espionage Act," defense attorney Edward MacMahon Jr. recently told Fox.
It is not known what relevant evidence, if any, has been uncovered by the FBI, or whether any charges will ultimately be brought, but Director James Comey told reporters in Washington D.C. on Oct. 1, "If you know my folks… they don't give a rip about politics."
On Thursday, a group of national security whistleblowers held a news conference in Washington at the National Press Club to highlight what they characterized as a double standard in these types of cases.
NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake was indicted in 2010 under the Espionage Act for sharing unclassified material with a Baltimore Sun reporter. Drake, who also went to Congress with his concerns about the NSA, said his goal was to expose government misconduct.
"This is the secretary of state, one of the most targeted individuals by other intelligence entities and agencies in the world using a private server to traffic highly sensitive information and no doubt including classified information and no doubt including info about sources and methods,"Drake said at Thursday's event.
He added the whistleblowers' treatment shows there is a law for the average citizen, and apparently a different set of rules for the powerful.
"But hey, I'm secretary of state," Drake said in a sarcastic tone. "Even Obama gave her cover."
The charges against Drake were eventually dropped. He pled guilty to a misdemeanor, but in the process lost his ability to work in national security and depleted his life savings to mount a defense.
Former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling also went to Congress with his complaints, but was sentenced in May to three-and-a-half years in prison for violating the Espionage Act by giving classified information to a New York Times reporter. Sterling, who is appealing the case, was also convicted on obstruction of justice charges because a single email was missing from his account, even though the government could not show he was responsible for that.
Clinton has acknowledged deleting some 30,000 emails she considered personal.
In 2015, former CIA Director General David Petraeus pled guilty to a misdemeanor admitting he mishandled classified materials by sharing notebooks with his former mistress and biographer, Paula Broadwell.
He also was ordered to pay a $100,000 fine. Sterling's supporters said he shared far less classified information with the New York Times.
"Powerful and politically connected individuals accused of the same and much worse conduct receive, at most, a slap on the wrist. Like General David Petraeus who gave away more secret information, classified at a much higher level, to his mistress and received a sweetheart plea deal for a minor misdemeanor,"Jesselyn Radack, a whistleblower and former ethics adviser to the Department of Justice, said Thursday.
"Or Hillary Clinton – she got a primetime TV apologist political spin interview from President Obama himself," Radack added.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/10/15/source-fbi-probe-clinton-email-focused-on-gross-negligence-provision/
Eight Laws Hillary Clinton Could Be Indicted For Breaking
Kenneth P. Bergquist
Brigadier General, U.S. Army (Ret)
As a former Justice Department official, I have, of late, been asked by both Democratic and Republican friends whether Hillary Clinton could be indicted for her email related actions. The simple answer is yes — she, and perhaps some of her senior staff, could be indicted for violating a number of federal criminal statutes. But for reasons that will be discussed later, it is unlikely that she will be.
Nevertheless, it is well worth discussing the various criminal provisions of federal law that she and others may have been violated based on mainstream news reports. Remember that news reporting can be incorrect or incomplete — and that Hillary Clinton, and anyone else involved, deserves every presumption of innocence. Also keep in mind that an indictment is not a conviction but rather the informed opinion of a grand jury that probable cause exists to believe one or more violations of federal criminal statutes have transpired.
This intellectual and legal research exercise should commence with a brief review of the basics of criminal jurisprudence: There are two elements of a criminal offense: the prohibited conduct as defined in statute; and the mens rea or mental intent of the individual or individuals engaging in the prohibited conduct. Thus, to gain a conviction on a criminal count in an indictment, a prosecutor must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that: (1) the prohibited conduct occurred, (2) the prohibited conduct was undertaken by the defendant, and (3) the defendant had the requisite mens rea or intent at the time.
1.) 18 U.S. Code § 793 – Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information
18 U.S. Code § 798 – Disclosure of classified information
A federal prosecutor would naturally focus first on the most serious allegations: willfully transmitting or willfully retaining Top Secret and Compartmented (TS/SCI) material using a private server system. The individual who transmits and the individual who receives and retains TS/SCI information on a private server jointly share the culpability for risking the compromise and exploitation of the information by hostile intelligence services. The prosecutor's charging document would likely include felony counts under 18 U.S. Code § 793 and under 18 U.S. Code § 798 against each transmitting individual as well as separate counts against each receiving and retaining individual. Violation of either provision of the U.S. Code cited above is a felony with a maximum prison term of ten years.
The prohibited conduct is the insecure transmission of highly classified information, as well as the receipt and retention of highly classified information in an unapproved manner. The requisite mens rea is the willful commission of the prohibited conduct and the knowledge that compromised information could result in prejudice or injury to the United States or advantage to any foreign nation. Proof of intent to disclose the classified information is not required.
2.) U.S. Code § 1924 – Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material
If the federal prosecutors are of a charitable disposition and an accused person has been cooperative, the felony charges under 18 U.S. Code § 793 and 18 U.S. Code § 798 may be "pled-down" to a single or to multiple misdemeanor counts under 18 U.S. Code § 1924. A misdemeanor conviction would probably result in a period of probation and a less significant fine. The prohibited conduct is the unauthorized removal of classified information from government control or its retention in an unauthorized location. The mens rea required is the intent to remove from government control or the intent to store the classified information in an unauthorized location.
3.) 18 U.S. Code § 2071(b) — Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally
To sustain a charge under 18 U.S. Code § 2071(b), a federal prosecutor need only prove that the accused transferred and held the only copies of official government records (whether classified or not), the very existence of which was concealed from government records custodians. The mens rea required is that an accused knows that official government records were transferred or removed from the control of government records custodians. Violation of 18 U.S. Code § 2071(b) is a felony with a maximum prison term of three years.
4.) 18 U.S. Code § 641 – Public money, property or records
Again, if the federal prosecutors are of a charitable disposition and accused has been cooperative, the felony charges under 18 U.S. Code § 2071(b) can be "pled down" to a misdemeanor under 18 U.S. Code § 641. The prohibited conduct is the conversion of official records (whether classified or not) to the accused's exclusive use and the mens rea is simply the intent to do so. Conviction on the lesser misdemeanor charge would likely result in a period of probation and the imposition of a fine.
5.) 18 U.S. Code § 1505 – Obstruction of proceedings before departments, agencies, and committees
If it can be proven that an accused destroyed, withheld, or concealed the existence of official records being sought under subpoena by a committee of Congress, the accused can be convicted of obstruction under 18 U.S. Code § 1505. The prohibited conduct includes destruction, concealment and withholding of documents, thereby impeding or obstructing the committee's rightful pursuit of information. The mens rea is knowledge of the committee's interest in obtaining the official records in the accused's custody or control. Violation of 18 U.S. Code § 1505 is a felony with a maximum prison term of five years.
6.) 18 U.S. Code § 1519 — Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations
If it can be proven that an accused knowingly concealed the existence of official records being sought by the Department of State Inspector General (DOS/IG) or by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), such accused can be convicted of obstruction. The prohibited conduct is the concealment and withholding of documents that impede or obstruct an investigation. The mens rea is the intent to conceal or withhold. Violation of 18 U.S. Code § 1519 is a felony with a maximum prison term of twenty years.
7.) 18 U.S. Code § 1031 — Fraud against the United States
18 U.S. Code § 1343 – Fraud by wire, radio or television
18 U.S. Code § 1346 — Definition of "scheme or artifice to defraud"
18 U.S. Code § 371 – Conspiracy to defraud the United States
If it can be proven that an accused arranged for the Department of State to hire an Information Technology (IT) specialist to primarily administer and maintain a private server system owned by the accused, then the accused can be convicted of conspiracy to commit honest services fraud and probably wire fraud. The prohibited conduct is having the United States pay an employee salary and/or official travel funds for performing private services on behalf of accused. The mens rea is simply the knowledge of the employee's status as a public servant and that the government was not fully reimbursed for the costs to the government of such services. The wire fraud conviction can be sought if it can be proven that accused used electronic means of communication in undertaking such scheme or artifice to defraud.
8.) 18 U.S. Code § 371 – Conspiracy to commit a federal offense
If any accused and any third party can be proven to have colluded in any violation of federal, criminal law, then all involved can be charged with criminal conspiracy as well as being charged with the underlying offense.
Indictment?
The old adage, that a good prosecutor can get a ham sandwich indicted, is bad news for any public servant who risks the compromise of classified information or otherwise violates any of the other federal criminal statutes listed above. Specifically, this Administration has a history of vigorously prosecuting and winning convictions in the mishandling of classified information and other criminal violations of the public trust.
However, Hillary Clinton is anything but a ham sandwich; and she knows it. She and her senior aides will not even be formally investigated by this Justice Department, much less indicted. The president will allow Hillary Clinton and her aides to "tough it out" for as long it is politically possible. However, if and when the political and public opinion costs of a "tough it out" tactic become too great, President Obama will simply use that famous pen of his to issue a succinct pardon and make formal mockery of the concept of equal justice.
Kenneth Bergquist served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the United States Department of Justice during the Reagan Administration and serves now as pro bono legal counsel to the Special Operations Education Fund (OPSEC).
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/21/eight-laws-hillary-clinton-could-be-indicted-for-breaking/#ixzz3omBYzjeq
Plan A (Awful) Hillary Clinton, Plan B (Bad): Joe Biden, Plan C (California): Jerry Brown, Plan D (Dumb): Bernie Sanders — Obama's Legacy: The Destruction of Democratic Party — Rupert Murdoch Says Biden Very Likely To Win Nomination and Hard To Beat — Videos
Posted on September 9, 2015. Filed under: American History, Articles, Blogroll, Communications, Congress, Constitution, Corruption, Crime, Culture, Documentary, Economics, Elections, Employment, Entertainment, Faith, Family, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Federal Government, Federal Government Budget, Films, Fiscal Policy, Foreign Policy, Fraud, Freedom, Friends, government, government spending, history, Illegal, Immigration, Law, Legal, liberty, Life, Links, media, Middle East, Money, Movies, National Security Agency (NSA), National Security Agency (NSA_, People, Philosophy, Police, Political Correctness, Radio, Radio, Raves, Talk Radio, Taxation, Television, Unemployment, Video, War, Wealth, Welfare, Wisdom | Tags: 8 September 2015, America, articles, Audio, Awful, BAD, Benghazi Scandal, Bernie Sanders, Breaking News, Broadcasting, California, capitalism, Cartoons, Charity, Citizenship, Clarity, Classical Liberalism, Classified Documents, Collectivism, Commentary, Commitment, Communicate, Communication, Concise, Convincing, Courage, Crimes, Culture, Current Affairs, Current Events, Democratic Party, Donald Trump, Dumb, economic growth, economic policy, Economics, Education, Emails, Enemy of the State, Evil, Experience, Faith, Family, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), First, fiscal policy, Fox News, free enterprise, freedom, freedom of speech, Friends, Give It A Listen, God, Good, Goodwill, Growth, Hillary Clinton, Hope, ill O'Reilly, Individualism, Iran, Jerry Brown, Joe Biden, Knowledge, liberty, Life, Love, Lovers of Liberty, monetary policy, MPEG3, National Security Agency (NSA), News, Nuclear weapons, Opinions, Peace, Photos, Plan A (Awful) Hillary Clinton, Plan B (Bad) Joe Biden, Plan C (California) Jerry Brown, Plan D (Dumb) Bernie Sanders, Plans, Podcasts, Political Philosophy, Politics, Prison, prosperity, Radio, Raymond Thomas Pronk, Representative Republic, Republic, Resources, Respect, rule of law, Rule of Men, Rupert Murdoch, Show Notes, Talk Radio, The Future of FREEDOM, The Pronk Pops Show, The Pronk Pops Show 528, The Truth About Bernie Sanders, Truth, Tyranny, U.S. Constitution, United States of America, Videos, Virtue, Wall Street Journal, War, William Binney, Wisdom |
Pronk Pops Show 496: June 30, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 486; June 16, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 481: June 9, 2015
Plan A (Awful) Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton 'Sorry' Her Use Of Private E-Mail Has Raised Questions
Hillary Clinton on emails: 'I'm sorry'
Hillary Clinton Interview: One-On-One With Andrea Mitchell | MSNBC
Mounting trouble in Hillary Clinton email investigation
Clinton Emails To Receive 50 State Department Staff
Judge Napolitano: Gut feeling is that Hillary Clinton will be charged over private emails.
• Clinton Insiders Altered Top Secret Emails • Kelly File • 8/12/15 •
Napolitano: Clinton's emails on home server against the law – FoxTV United States News
Rep. Gowdy: "About damn time" Clinton emails tu..
Newsmax Prime | Gen. Michael Hayden on Hillary Clinton's having compromised U.S. National Security
Trump Predicts Prison Time for Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton vs Bernie Sanders
Hillary Clinton on emails: 'everything was permitted
Plan B (Bad) Joe Biden
Joe Biden Makes Strides, But Is He Running?
Crowd greets Biden with chants of 'Run, Joe, run!'
Biden greeted with chants of 'run, Joe, run!' in Pittsburgh
Biden Hears Cheers: 'Run, Joe, Run'
Plan C (California) Jerry Brown
Gov. Jerry Brown: If I were Biden, I'd give 2016 run 'very serious consideration
Jerry Brown: If I Were Joe Biden, I'd Give 2016 Run 'Serious Consideration'
Jerry Brown: I Would Run for President if I Was 10 Years Younger
Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown talks drought, political future
Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown Nixes 2016 Presidential Bid
Jerry Brown for President 1992 Report – (The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour)
Bill Clinton Versus Jerry Brown 1992
3 California Governors Who Ran for President
Plan D (Dumb) Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders Grows NH Lead Over Hillary Clinton, Gains in Iowa
Bernie Sanders Explains Why Socialist Isn't a Dirty Word
Things Get Awkward When Matthews Asks DNC Head About Bernie Sanders, Socialism (VIDEO)
Socialist Bernie Sanders Doesn't Understand Socialism
The Truth About Bernie Sanders
Rupert Murdoch On Why He Supports Immigration Reform
Rupert Murdoch: Donald Trump 'wrong' on immigration
Bill O'Reilly Donald Trump Battle over Immigration Plan and 14th Amendment
National Security Agency Whistleblower William Binney on Growing State Surveillance
Operation "Toto" Pulling Back The Curtain: Full NSA Interview
Will Smith Movies Full Length | Enemy of the State 1998 Movie English HD
'Run, Joe, run!' Adoring Pittsburgh crowd enthusiastically encourages Joe Biden to run for president
Joe Biden given a rapturous welcome by Pittsburgh steelworkers at rally
The Vice President gave a rousing speech blaming America's ills on stagnant wages and an unfair tax code that favors the wealthy
Biden, who is still grieving his son, Beau, jogged through the crowd
Biden's popularity numbers are on par with Trump's
By KIRI BLAKELEY FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUBLISHED: 13:35 EST, 7 September 2015 | UPDATED: 15:58 EST, 7 September 2015
Hearing chants of 'run Joe, run,' Vice President Joe Biden marched in Pittsburgh's annual Labor Day parade on Monday as speculation swirled about a potential entry into the Democratic presidential campaign.
The vice president donned a black-and-gold United Steelworkers union hat and told hundreds of union members that the gap between the wealthy and poor was hurting the nation.
The 72-year-old exuberantly jogged through the crowd of supportive well-wishers, who were urging him to join the race for president.
'Give it a go, Joe!' shouted one woman.
Vice President Joe Biden revved up the crowd at a steelworkers union event in Pittsburgh on Sunday
Biden was greeted with shouts of 'Run, Joe, run!' encouraging him to run for president
Recent polls suggest that those who are abandoning Hillary Clinton back Biden for president, according to CNN.
But Biden deflected questions as to whether or not he would enter the fray, only saying 'I am definitely going to run part of this parade, I feel like I am home right now.'
But he had much more to say in his speech in front of the union.
'It used to be when productivity went up in America, everybody got a chance to share,' said Biden. 'They got a piece of the action… Why in God's name should a man or a woman working in a steel mill make $50,000 a year when someone on Wall Street makes millions of dollars a year?'
In introducing Biden for his speech, Trumka and United Steelworkers union chief Leo Gerard gave strong praise to Biden, who was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Biden praises unions as he addressees crowds on Labor Day
The adoring crowd flocked around the sprightly 72-year-old, who is still reeling from his son Beau's death in May, but who looked happy and healthy at the rally
Fans clamored for selfies with the VP, who tends to be known for his verbal gaffes
'He has never let us down,' said Gerard.
Biden, in his speech, said the tax code is to blame for the rich getting a bigger piece of the economic pie.
'The tax code's not fair. It's simply not fair,' Biden said in a city long associated with organized labor. 'The wealthy aren't paying their fair share. There used to be one America.'
Biden greeted United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard (right) who said Biden has never let steelworkers down
Biden was cagey about whether he would run for POTUS but he had no issue with jogging through the streets of Pittsburgh
When asked point-blank by young local business owner Chris Fuget asked whether he would announce a 2016 run, the Vice President coyly said, 'I haven't made that decision yet,' according to CNN.
There was some disappointment in the crowd that he didn't throw his hat into the ring.
'We thought today might have been the day,' said Pittsburgh union worker Jack Gaffrey.
'It's hope,' the VP said about the enthusiastic response the crowd gave him
His entry could jumble a Democratic contest that has seen front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton's lead diminish in early states against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who describes himself as a democratic socialist.
Biden, however, said last week he wasn't certain if he and his family had the 'emotional energy' for another campaign. Biden's eldest son, Beau, died of brain cancer in May.
Biden blamed America's ills on the tax code which favors the wealthy as well as low and stagnant wages
But AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who walked the parade route with Biden, said the vice president got a strong response from the city's workers.
'If you're looking for energy, this is a great place to get energy today,' the labor leader said.
Asked what he made of the overwhelmingly warm response Pittsburgh gave him, he replied, 'It's hope.'
'I am definitely going to run part of this parade,' Biden said and then made good his promise
In a new NBC/Marist poll of New Hampshire primary voters released on Sunday, Biden had support from 16 percent of Democratic voters.
That's half the total of Clinton, who herself trailed front runner Sanders by nine points in New Hampshire, a state where Bill and Hillary Clinton have deep ties.
In Iowa, Clinton saw her lead over Sanders decline by half and now leads him by 37 percent to 20 precent with Biden at 20 percent.
But Biden still isn't as quite popular as GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.
The reality star billionaire beats him by a narrow margin in a new national poll 44 percent to 42 percent, according to SurveyUSA.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3225543/Run-Joe-run-Pittsburgh-crowd-enthusiastically-encourages-Joe-Biden-run-president.html
The Best Second Choice
Forget Sanders and Biden, the Democrats' best 2016 backup is California Gov. Jerry Brown.
The best bet.
By Lara BrownAug. 21, 2015 | 10:40 a.m. EDT+ MoreIn assessing Hillary Clinton's chances of being the 2016 Democratic nominee, Sean Trende hits the nail squarely on the head: "Absent an indictment, she remains the solid favorite for the nomination." Yes, you read that correctly: "absent an indictment."
In any other year, with any other candidate, that phrase would be ludicrous. How could a party be so solidly behind a person who is so publicly balancing on a razor's edge between shady practices andillegal dealings? While there are many reasons for this, three stand out and are worth remembering before asking the next logical question: If not her, then who?
First, two large "anti-in-party" midterm elections decimated the Democrats' bench. Surviving Democratic statewide elected officials are few and far between. And those who are there need more time to acquire political experience and develop a national reputation.
Second, Clinton has been perceived by her fellow partisans as the next in line for the nomination since the day she conceded the 2008 nomination contest to then-Sen. Barack Obama. That year's epic contest ended with an unspoken but widely understood deal between the two warring factions of Democratic activists: Support for Obama in 2008 will lead to support for Clinton as his successor. This was a tough pill for Clinton's backers to take because they had been expecting Clinton to become the party's next nominee since the day John Kerry lost in 2004. But they accepted the trade because they had no choice.
Third, Clinton is not only unique because her gender combines with the Democratic Party's sincere desire to follow the first African-American president with the first female one (a right time, right place confluence of dynamics, if you will), but also because the country experienced tremendous economic prosperity during her husband's tenure in the White House and Democrats largely believe that fact will redound favorably on her candidacy.
Of course, her being a Clinton is also a challenge for her campaign. Aside from the dynasty knock, the Clintons have long rankled the feathers of other Democrats, and it was this "anti-Clinton" sentiment thatObama exploited to full benefit in 2008.
Nevertheless, it's this strange brew of partisan expectations and political realities that have likely kept Clinton's (older, but no less ambitious) Democratic opponents on the sidelines. If she were indicted, though, all bets are off and the problem of surfeit ambition would likely arise.
Setting aside the unknown probability of an indictment and the known likelihood of Clinton securing the Democratic presidential nomination before next spring, the question of who could possibly replace her is an interesting one to consider.
At the moment, progressive Democrats are increasingly rallying around one of her few declared opponents, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. But his far-left policy stances and past voting record make him a weak general election candidate. Democrats know this; it's highly unlikely that the party establishment would support him to become the nominee.
There's also the undeclared, but publicly ruminating Vice President Joe Biden. Despite his gaffe-pronereputation, most reports suggest that he is the party's preferred second choice.
Still, if Clinton's candidacy were to implode, I don't imagine Biden would be on a glide path to the nomination (unless Obama were to endorse him). Secretary of State John Kerry might decide his time is now. As he lost the 2004 election by fewer than 120,000 votes from Ohio, he can legitimately argue he's been a better candidate than Biden in past presidential races.
But by far, the Democrats' strongest septuagenarian is California Gov. Jerry Brown. He has vast political experience. He's well-liked across the Democratic Party. He continues to enjoy high approval ratings and has widely been perceived as an effective governor.
He'd also offer the Democrats two key talking points Sanders, Biden and Kerry can't: He's a Washington outsider and he knows how to make government work because he's served four terms in the top executive office in California. Further, he has a more than two-decade long reputation of being the "anti-Clinton," which would not only likely endear him to Sanders' supporters, but would also place him in good stead were the party needing to wash its hands of all things Clinton in the wake of an indictment.
So while Brown's candidacy may be a far-fetched possibility, from my view, he's the best "second choice" for Democrats to mount a competitive general election campaign. But then, all of us Brownsfrom California tend to view politics rather unconventionally.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/lara-brown/2015/08/21/jerry-brown-is-the-democrats-best-choice-to-replace-clinton
GINGRICH: JERRY BROWN COULD ENTER PRESIDENTIAL RACE
by JOEL B. POLLAK 17 Aug 2015246
Former Speaker of the House and 2012 presidential candidate Newt Gingrich told CNN on Monday that California Gov. Jerry Brown could enter the presidential race.
"If Hillary starts to implode you will see a vacuum that you have not seen in many, many years," Gingrich told Fox News' Greta van Susteren on her show, On the Record, speculating that Clinton's mounting scandals could cost her the race.
"[Former New York mayor Michael] Bloomberg, if he shifts, Jerry Brown–I mean, you just don't know. [Senator]
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) 15% …" Gingrich suggested.Gingrich also suggested that Secretary of State John Kerry might run, along with Vice President Joe Biden.
Brown has run for president three times before. He would be 78 years old in 2016, and has suggested that age might be an obstacle to a run, though he has not entirely ruled out a fourth attempt at the Oval Office.
He is, however, among the most popular and successful Democratic governors in the United States, and has more experience than anyone else in the field, currently or potentially.
Gingrich said that Hillary's main worry will be socialist
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) 16%, who is running for the Democratic Party nomination.
http://www.breitbart.com/california/2015/08/17/gingrich-jerry-brown-could-enter-presidential-race/
Billionaires For Bush and Clinton — American People For Anyone Else — Nurse Ratchet Is Back — Money Cannot Buy You Love — It's My Turn — Videos
Posted on June 20, 2015. Filed under: American History, Articles, Banking, Blogroll, Books, British History, Business, College, Comedy, Communications, Constitution, Corruption, Crime, Crisis, Culture, Documentary, Economics, Education, Employment, Energy, European History, Faith, Family, Federal Government, Federal Government Budget, Fiscal Policy, Foreign Policy, Fraud, Freedom, government, government spending, history, Homicide, Illegal, Immigration, Inflation, Investments, Islam, Law, Legal, liberty, Life, Links, Literacy, media, Middle East, Monetary Policy, Money, Money, Music, National Security Agency (NSA_, Natural Gas, Non-Fiction, Nuclear Power, Oil, People, Philosophy, Photos, Police, Politics, Press, Radio, Radio, Raves, Regulations, Religious, Speech, Talk Radio, Taxation, Taxes, Terrorism, Unemployment, Video, War, Wealth, Welfare, Wisdom, Writing | Tags: 15 June 2015, America, Ann Coulter, articles, Audio, Billionaires Candidates of Choice, Billionaires For Bush and Clinton, Breaking News, Broadcasting, capitalism, Cartoons, Charity, Citizenship, Clarity, Classical Liberalism, Collectivism, Commentary, Commitment, Communicate, Communication, Concise, Convincing, Courage, Crimes, Culture, Current Affairs, Current Events, Democratic Party, Deport the 30-50 Million Aliens in the United States, economic growth, economic policy, Economics, Education, Election 2016 Presidential Polls, Evil, Experience, Faith, Family, First, fiscal policy, free enterprise, freedom, freedom of speech, Friends, Gallup Polls, Give It A Listen, God, Good, Goodwill, Growth, Hillary Clinton, Hope, How Many Illegal Aliens Are in the US?, Illegal Aliens, illegal immigration, Immigration, Independents, Individualism, Jeb Bush, Knowledge, liberty, Life, Love, Lovers of Liberty, Mark Levin, monetary policy, Money, MPEG3, Music, News, Nurse Ratchet, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Open borders, Opinions, Peace, Photos, Podcasts, Political Philosophy, Politics, Polls, Presidential Campaign Announcements, Presidential Elections 2016, prosperity, Radio, Raymond Thomas Pronk, Representative Republic, Republic, Republican Party, Resources, Respect, rule of law, Rule of Men, Show Notes, Songs, Talk Radio, Tax Policy, Tax Rates, The Pronk Pops Show, The Pronk Pops Show 485, Trends, Trends in Party Identification, Truth, Tyranny, Tyranny of Two Party System, U.S. Constitution, U.S. Federal Government Budget, United States of America, Videos, Virtue, War, Wisdom |
Story 1: Billionaires For Bush and Clinton — American People For Anyone Else — Nurse Ratchet Is Back — Money Cannot Buy You Love — It's My Turn — Videos
Be it or be it not true that Man is shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin, it is unquestionably true that Government is begotten of aggression, and by aggression.
~Herbert Spencer, 1850
This is the gravest danger that today threatens civilization: State intervention, the absorption of all spontaneous social effort by the State; that is to say, of spontaneous historical action, which in the long-run sustains, nourishes and impels human destinies.
~Jose Ortega y Gasset, 1922
It [the State] has taken on a vast mass of new duties and responsibilities; it has spread out its powers until they penetrate to every act of the citizen, however secret; it has begun to throw around its operations the high dignity and impeccability of a State religion; its agents become a separate and superior caste, with authority to bind and loose, and their thumbs in every pot. But it still remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men.
~Henry L. Mencken, 1926
Election 2016 Presidential Polls
Race/Topic (Click to Sort)
Iowa Republican Presidential Caucus Morning Consult Walker 18, Rubio 7, Huckabee 10, Paul 10, Bush 10, Carson 5, Cruz 4, Santorum, Trump 5, Christie 6, Perry, Fiorina 2, Kasich, Jindal Walker +8
Iowa Democratic Presidential Caucus Morning Consult Clinton 54, Sanders 12, Biden 9, O'Malley 1, Webb 1, Chafee Clinton +42
New Hampshire Republican Presidential Primary Morning Consult Bush 14, Walker 10, Paul 9, Rubio 8, Trump 8, Christie 7, Cruz 4, Carson 6, Huckabee 6, Fiorina 5, Perry, Jindal, Santorum, Kasich Bush +4
New Hampshire 2016 Democratic Primary Morning Consult Clinton 44, Sanders 32, Biden 8, O'Malley 2, Webb 1, Chafee Clinton +12
South Carolina Republican Presidential Primary Morning Consult Bush 11, Walker 10, Graham 14, Cruz 6, Carson 12, Huckabee 7, Rubio 8, Paul 5, Christie 5, Trump 2, Perry, Santorum Graham +2
South Carolina Democratic Presidential Primary Morning Consult Clinton 56, Biden 15, Sanders 10, O'Malley 3, Webb 2, Chafee 1 Clinton +41
2016 Republican Presidential Nomination Monmouth Bush 9, Walker 10, Rubio 9, Carson 11, Huckabee 8, Paul 6, Cruz 5, Christie 4, Trump 2, Perry 4, Santorum 3, Fiorina 2, Kasich 1, Graham 2, Jindal 1 Carson +1
Ohio Republican Presidential Primary PPP (D) Kasich 19, Walker 13, Carson 13, Bush 12, Rubio 12, Paul 9, Huckabee 6, Cruz 5, Christie 4, Jindal, Perry Kasich +6
Ohio Democratic Presidential Primary PPP (D) Clinton 61, Biden, Sanders 13, Chafee 2, O'Malley 2, Webb 1 Clinton +48
Ohio: Bush vs. Clinton PPP (D) Clinton 45, Bush 43 Clinton +2
Ohio: Walker vs. Clinton PPP (D) Clinton 44, Walker 43 Clinton +1
Ohio: Rubio vs. Clinton PPP (D) Clinton 44, Rubio 44 Tie
Ohio: Carson vs. Clinton PPP (D) Clinton 44, Carson 43 Clinton +1
Ohio: Paul vs. Clinton PPP (D) Clinton 41, Paul 44 Paul +3
Ohio: Huckabee vs. Clinton PPP (D) Clinton 45, Huckabee 42 Clinton +3
Ohio: Cruz vs. Clinton PPP (D) Clinton 44, Cruz 43 Clinton +1
Ohio: Christie vs. Clinton PPP (D) Clinton 44, Christie 41 Clinton +3
Ohio: Kasich vs. Clinton PPP (D) Clinton 40, Kasich 47 Kasich +7
Trends in Party Identification, 1939-2014
For more than 70 years, with few exceptions, more Americans have identified as Democrats than Republicans. But the share of independents, which surpassed the percentages of either Democrats or Republicans several years ago, continues to increase. Currently, 39% Americans identify as independents, 32% as Democrats and 23% as Republicans. This is the highest percentage of independents in more than 75 years of public opinion polling. Report: A Deep Dive Into Party Affiliation
% of Americans who say they are …
http://www.people-press.org/interactives/party-id-trend/
Note: 1939-1989 yearly averages from the Gallup Organization interactive website. 1990-2014 yearly totals from Pew Research Center aggregate files. Based on the general public. Data unavailable for 1941. Independent data unavailable for 1951-1956.
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest – Randal back in action scene
i want my cigarettes
The Beatles – Can't Buy Me Love (Live)
Hillary Clinton Announces Her Bid For President. Again.
This Aug. 24, 2012 photo provided by FDR Four Freedoms Park LLC, shows the New York City memorial park, honoring President Franklin D. Roosevelt, that has been completed 40 years after the original design was created. The Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park on the southern tip of 2-mile-long Roosevelt Island – between Manhattan and Queens – is being dedicated Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2012, in a ceremony to be attended by dignitaries including former President Bill Clinton and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. (AP Photo/FDR Four Freedoms Park LLC, Paul Warchol)
Clinton touts shared prosperity in campaign kick-off speech
Hillary Clinton's 2016 Candidacy Announcement Expected on Sunday
Hillary Clinton's 2016 Presidential Campaign Announcement (OFFICIAL)
Malzberg | Raffi Williams discusses Hillary Clinton's Saturday "Re-Launch" of her Campaign
Hillary Clinton Launches Presidential Campaign In Nyc FULL SPEECH
Hillary the Scandals
Exposed: Hillary Clinton's Sex Scandals
THE CLINTON CONSPIRACY – MUST WATCH
Google "Bill Clinton rape"
The Alex Jones Show (1st HOUR-VIDEO Commercial Free) Sunday June 14 2015: News
CNN Poll Shows Hillary Clinton "Shine Has Tarnished" And She Is Losing Support Of Independents
FNC: Hillary Clinton's Favorability Down 11 Among Independents
Jeb LET'S-JUST-LEAVE-LAST-NAMES-OUT-OF-THIS Bush 2016 Presidential Campaign Announcement
Immigration Protesters Disrupt Jeb Bush Campaign Announcement – June 15, 2015
Conservative Heads Explode Over Jeb Bush Immigration Comments
Mark Levin comments on Jeb Bush's statements about legal and illegal immigration
PJTV: No Jeb Bush and No Third Parties
Glenn Beck – "Jeb Bush is Hillary Clinton LITE"
Immigration by the Numbers — Off the Charts
America's Immigration History
Top 10 Immigrant Countries
Immigration, World Poverty and Gumballs – Updated 2010
How Many Illegal Aliens Are in the US? – Walsh – 1
How Many Illegal Aliens Are in the United States? Presentation by James H. Walsh, Associate General Counsel of the former INS – part 1.
Census Bureau estimates of the number of illegals in the U.S. are suspect and may represent significant undercounts. The studies presented by these authors show that the numbers of illegal aliens in the U.S. could range from 20 to 38 million.
On October 3, 2007, a press conference and panel discussion was hosted by Californians for Population Stabilization (http://www.CAPSweb.org) and The Social Contract (http://www.TheSocialContract.com) to discuss alternative methodologies for estimating the true numbers of illegal aliens residing in the United States.
This is a presentation of five panelists presenting at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C. on October 3, 2007. The presentations are broken into a series of video segments:
Wayne Lutton, Introduction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5KHQR…
Diana Hull, part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6WvFW…
Diana Hull, part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYuRNY…
James H Walsh, part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB0RkV…
James H. Walsh, part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbmdun…
Phil Romero: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_ohvJ…
Fred Elbel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNTJGf…
Jeb Bush Urges 'Earned Legal Status' For 11 Million Illegal Aliens
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JEB BUSH HAS OPTIMISTIC MESSAGE, FACES CHALLENGES IN '16 BID
BY STEVE PEOPLES AND BRENDAN FARRINGTON
Jeb Bush is launching a Republican presidential bid months in the making Monday with a vow to get Washington "out of the business of causing problems" and to stay true to his beliefs – easier said than done in a bristling primary contest where his conservative credentials will be sharply challenged.
"I will campaign as I would serve, going everywhere, speaking to everyone, keeping my word, facing the issues without flinching," Bush said in excerpts of a speech released by his campaign before his afternoon announcement. Bush was opening his campaign at a rally near his south Florida home at Miami Dade College, where the institution's large and diverse student body symbolizes the nation he seeks to lead.
In an unusual twist for a political speech aimed at a national audience, Bush, who is bilingual, planned to speak partly in Spanish. The former Florida governor has made minority outreach a priority.
"In any language," his speech said, "my message will be an optimistic one because I am certain that we can make the decades just ahead in America the greatest time ever to be alive in this world."
In a video for the event, showing women, minorities and a disabled child, Bush says "the most vulnerable in our society should be in the front of the line and not the back." This calls for "new leadership that takes conservative principles and applies them so that people can rise up."
Neither his father, former President George H.W. Bush, nor his brother, former President George W. Bush, was expected to attend. The family was to be represented instead by Jeb Bush's mother and former first lady, Barbara Bush, who once said that the country didn't need yet another Bush as president, and by his son George P. Bush, recently elected Texas land commissioner.
Before the event, the Bush campaign came out with a new logo – Jeb! – that conspicuously leaves out the Bush surname.
Bush joins the race in progress in some ways in a commanding position. Bush has probably raised a record amount of money to support his candidacy and conceived of a new approach on how to structure his campaign, both aimed at allowing him to make a deep run into the GOP primaries.
But on other measures, early public opinion polls among them, he has yet to break out. While unquestionably one of the top-tier candidates in the GOP race, he is also only one of several in a large and capable Republican field that does not have a true front-runner.
In the past six months, Bush has made clear he will remain committed to his core beliefs in the campaign to come – even if his positions on immigration and education standards are deeply unpopular among the conservative base of the party that plays an outsized role in the GOP primaries.
Tea party leader Mark Meckler on Monday said Bush's positions on education and immigration are "a nonstarter with many conservatives."
"There are two political dynasties eyeing 2016," said Meckler, a co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, one of the movement's largest organizations, and now leader of Citizens for Self-Governance. "And before conservatives try to beat Hillary, they first need to beat Bush."
Yet a defiant Bush has showed little willingness to placate his party's right wing.
"I'm not going to change who I am," Bush said as he wrapped up a European trip on the weekend. "I respect people who may not agree with me, but I'm not going to change my views because today someone has a view that's different."
Bush is one of 11 major Republicans in the hunt for the nomination. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are among those still deciding whether to join a field that could end up just shy of 20.
After touring four early-voting states, Bush quickly launches a private fundraising tour with stops in at least 11 cities before the end of the month. Two events alone – a reception at Union Station in Washington on Friday and a breakfast the following week on Seventh Avenue in New York – will account for almost $2 million in new campaign cash, according to invitations that list more than 75 already committed donors.
Jeb Bush Announces GOP Presidential Campaign
Enters crowded Republican field with the party faithful divided over the GOP's direction
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination on Monday, flipping the switch on an expansive campaign operation he has quietly been building for months.
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush formally announces his campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination on Monday, June 15, 2015 in Miami. PHOTO:REUTERS
"Here's what it comes down to. Our country is on a very bad course. And the question is: What are we going to do about it? The question for me is: What am I going to do about it?" he said. "And I have decided. I am a candidate for president of the United States."
Mr. Bush, who becomes the third member of his family to seek the nation's highest office, spoke while delivering his official campaign speech at Miami-Dade College.
Earlier, he officially kicked off his candidacy by filing paperwork to run for president with the Federal Election Commission.
The son and brother of two U.S. presidents, Mr. Bush enters a presidential field crowded with young up-and-coming Republican talent and an electorate deeply divided about the future direction of both the Republican Party and the nation.
In laying out the case for his candidacy, Mr. Bush promised an uplifting message about the direction and future of the country.
"In any language, my message will be an optimistic one because I am certain that we can make the decades just ahead in America the greatest time ever to be alive in this world," Mr. Bush said.
And the former Florida governor boasted about job and economic growth and tax cuts in the state over his tenure.
Jeb Bush is not that far off politically from brother George W., but the two have very different personalities and backgrounds. Photo: AP
Though Mr. Bush has built a sizable campaign war chest and attracted veteran operatives for both his campaign and his independent super PAC—polls show him barely registering above 10% in a crowded primary field.
He'll also face a Republican primary electorate that has grown more conservative since his brother George W. Bush ran for election in 2000 on a platform of what he called compassionate conservatism.
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On two issues in particular—immigration andeducation—Mr. Bush finds himself on the opposite side from many grassroots activists in the Republican Party. Mr. Bush has long supported changes to the nation's immigration system that would allow illegal immigrants a path to legal status. He also has expressed support for national education standards opposed by many conservative activists.
Mr. Bush also faces the challenge of distancing himself in the voters' eyes from his family name and legacy. His brother, George W. Bush, left office with sagging approval ratings due in part to his role as the architect of a divisive and unpopular war in Iraq.
Jeb Bush has spent months planning his entrance into the 2016 presidential campaign and he will enter with the most name recognition and money of his GOP field. WSJ's Jerry Seib explains. Photo: AP
Mr. Bush unveiled a campaign logo on Monday that downplays his family's last name. The stylized red logo contains only Mr. Bush's first name with an exclamation point. His father, George H.W. Bush, and brother, George W. Bush, aren't expected to attend his campaign kickoff.
Mr. Bush has been traveling the country in the past few months banking campaign cash for an independent group that is expected to support his efforts. With his deep ties to the Republican donor class and the business community, Mr. Bush has built a formidable operation and a major war chest.
Once he becomes an official candidate, he won't be able to coordinate with the super PAC, which will be run out of Los Angeles. Mr. Bush's official campaign is based in Florida.
His announcement comes on his return from a five-day, three-nation European tour aimed at shoring up Mr. Bush's foreign policy credentials.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/jeb-bush-formally-announces-hell-seek-gop-presidential-nomination-1434388382
Jeb Bush: I cry, I'm introverted, but I want to be president
Third member of the Bush dynasty finally to announce candidacy for Republican nomination
Jeb Bush, former Florida governor, in Tallinn, Estonia, on Saturday Photo: Bloomberg
By Joanna Walters, New York and Raf Sanchez, Miami
Jeb Bush will finally end months of speculation and announce he is running for the American presidency on Monday, in a campaign carefully calibrated to portray himself as a natural heir to the family dynasty and at the same time distance himself from his brother George W.
In a key-note interview, he described his father, the first President George Bush, as the "greatest man alive" and said the mere thought of him might make him cry.
But by contrast he was careful to differentiate himself from his brother. "Jeb is different from George," he told CNN. "Jeb is who he is and his life story is different."
Mr Bush plans to announce he is running for the White House in Miami on Monday, after months of unofficial campaigning.
He unveiled his campaign logo via social media site Twitter on Sunday, and immediately ran into teasing from the public that it is almost identical to the logo he used when he ran, successfully, for the governorship of Florida in 1998.
The logo is simply his first name in bright red with an exclamation mark and 2016 underneath. His governor's campaign logo was also 'Jeb!'
In a jab at both President Barack Obama and, seemingly, some of hisyounger Republican rivals such as Marco Rubio, he was keen to project a statesmanlike appearance, touting his "life experience" as a state governor and overseas businessman.
"It's something that's been lacking in the presidency, to have someone who's been tempered by life, and along the way I will get to share that," said Mr Bush, who at 62 is eighteen years older than Mr Rubio and eight years older even than the departing president.
Polls show the two men, along with Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, as the current front-runners for the Republican nomination.
• Which Republicans are running for US president in 2016?
Mr Bush will make his campaign announcement in his hometown of Miami and will be joined by his wife Columba, a Mexican-born woman who has largely shied away from the public spotlight.
The story of how they met as teenagers featured prominently in a video Mr Bush released shortly before the announcement.
"I need to share my heart to show a little bit about my life experience," Mr Bush said in the video.
While it has been clear for months that Mr Bush intended to run he has used the time ahead of his formal announcement to raise funds for a superPAC, a nominally independent group that will support his candidacy.
Mr Bush is said to have already amassed a campaign war chest of more than $100 million, according to the website Politico.
He also travelled to Germany, Poland and Estonia to showcase his foreign policy credentials and has been dieting based on the eating habits of a caveman to shed weight before getting into the race.
Mr Bush will run with a traditionally hawkish Republican approach to foreign policy, arguing for a stronger line against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and Vladimir Putin's Russia.
But he is among the most moderate of the Republican contenders when it comes to domestic policy. Unlike others in his party he has not lashed out at national education standards and has taken a more measured tone on immigration.
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Mr Bush, who speaks fluent Spanish, may be able to attract the votes of Hispanic voters who are an increasingly crucial voting group in US elections.
However, the conservative activists who play a major role in determining the Republican nominee may pressure Mr Bush to take a harsher line on immigration.
He has already backed away from his previous support for a "path to citizenship" for illegal immigrants who have lived and worked in the US for a long time. Mrs Clinton supports such a path, as does President Barack Obama.
Mr Bush has denied he was trying to cut himself off from his famous name, but admitted he had a difficult task to show the man beneath the family.
• Does Jeb Bush even really want to be president?
"I don't have to dissociate myself from my family, you know, I love them but I know that for me to be successful I'm going to have to share my heart, tell my story," he added.
"It's important. It's something that took a little bit of getting used to for me, personally, to be able to show my heart, because I'm kind of introverted, but it's important to do," he said.
He was asked about his father, who turned 91 on June 12 and whether he would be on his mind when he announces his own candidacy to follow in the family footsteps.
"I'm not going to think about that because Bushes are known to cry once in a while. It's very emotional for me," he said. "I love my dad. He's just the greatest man alive," he said.
Mr Bush said he was looking forward to telling a life story that was "full of warts and full of successes", where he had had to make "tough decisions".Most startling is that it completely leaves out the famous family name that has given him a head start in the 2016 presidential race.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11674241/Jeb-Bush-I-cry-Im-introverted-but-I-want-to-be-president.html
Clinton formally launches 2016 campaign with focus on economic equality
Hillary Clinton on Saturday officially launched her 2016 presidential campaign, calling for a return to shared prosperity and asking American workers, students and others to trust her to fight for them.
Clinton made the announcement at an outdoor rally on New York City's Roosevelt Island, two months after announcing her campaign with an online video.
"You have to wonder: When do I get ahead? I say now," Clinton told the crowd in a roughly 46-minute speech. "You brought the country back. Now it's your time to enjoy the prosperity. That is why I'm running for president of the United States."
The former first lady, U.S. senator from New York and secretary of state is the Democratic frontrunner in the 2016 White House race.
Also in the race are Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chaffe.
She lost her 2008 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination to then-Sen. Obama.
Clinton, wearing her signature blue pantsuit, walked through the crowd en route to the stage for her speech.
She remarked that Franklin D. Roosevelt's Four Freedoms are a "testament to our nation's unmatched aspirations and a reminder of our unfinished work at home and abroad."
Clinton also drew into focus what will likely be the key themes of her campaign including support for same-sex marriage, wage equality for women and all Americans, affordable college tuition and free child-care and pre-kindergarten.
"The top-25 hedge fund managers make more than all kindergarten teachers combined," she said. "And they're paying lower taxes."
Clinton attempted to portray herself as a fierce advocate for those left behind in the post-recession economy, detailing a lifetime of work on behalf of struggling families. She said her mother's difficult childhood inspired what she considers a calling.
"I have been called many things by many people," Clinton said." Quitter is not one of them."
She said that attribute came from her late mother, Dorothy Rodham, in whom she would confide after hard days in the Senate and at the State Department.
"I wish my mother could have been with us longer," Clinton said. "I wish she could have seen the America we are going to build together … where we don't leave any one out or any one behind."
Clinton was joined by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and their daughter, Chelsea.
She also was critical in her speech of Republicans, suggesting they have reserved economic prosperity for the wealthy, in large part by cutting taxes for the country's highest wage-earners.
She also accused them of trying to "wipe out tough rules on Wall Street," take away health insurance from more than 16 million Americans without offering any "credible alternative" and turning their backs on "gay people who love each other."
The Republican National Committee said in response that Clinton's campaign was full of hypocritical attacks, partisan rhetoric and ideas from the past.
"Next year, Americans will reject the failed policies of the past and elect a Republican president," RNC Press Secretary Allison Moore said.
Republicans also argued Clinton devoted only about five minutes of her speech to foreign policy.
Clinton now heads to four early-primary states, starting Saturday night in Iowa where she will talk with volunteers and others about grassroots-campaign efforts for the first-in-the-nation caucus state.
The organizational meeting will be simulcast to Clinton camps across the country and serve as a blueprint for them all 435 congressional districts.
She then travels to New Hampshire on June 15, South Carolina on June 17 and in Nevada on June 18.
Clinton vowed Saturday to roll out specific policy proposals in the coming weeks, including ones on rewriting the tax code and sustainable energy.
In what was her first major speech of her campaign, she also cited President Obama, Roosevelt and her husband, saying they embraced the idea that "real and lasting prosperity must be built by all and shared by all."
Holding the event on an island between Queens and Manhattan raised some criticism about its accessibility by vehicle and public transportation.
The campaign estimated the event crowd, whose members needed a ticket, at 5,500. However, the number appeared smaller, and the overflow section was empty.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/06/13/clinton-formally-launches-2016-campaign-with-focus-on-economic-equality/
Hillary Clinton, in Roosevelt Island Speech, Pledges to Close Income Gap
By AMY CHOZICK
Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a speech that was at times sweeping and at times policy laden, delivered on Saturday a pointed repudiation of Republican economic policies and a populist promise to reverse the gaping gulf between the rich and poor at her biggest campaign event to date.
Under sunny skies and surrounded by flag-waving supporters on Roosevelt Island in New York, Mrs. Clinton pledged to run an inclusive campaign and to create a more inclusive economy, saying that even the new voices in the Republican Party continued to push "the top-down economic policies that failed us before."
"These Republicans trip over themselves promising lower taxes for the wealthy and fewer rules for the biggest corporations without any regard on how that will make income inequality worse," she said before a crowd estimated at 5,500, according to the campaign.
"I'm not running for some Americans, but for all Americans," Mrs. Clinton said. "I'm running for all Americans."
Roosevelt Island Awakens to a Clinton Crowd JUNE 13, 2015
Offering her case for the presidency, she rested heavily on her biography. Her candidacy, she said, was in the name of "everyone who has ever been knocked down but refused to be knocked out."
U.S. & POLITICS By Reuters 00:51
Hillary Outlines Campaign Focus
Hillary Clinton speaks at her campaign launch rally on Roosevelt Island in New York City.
By Reuters on Publish DateJune 13, 2015. Photo by Mark Kauzlarich/The New York Times.
Mrs. Clinton portrayed herself as a fighter, sounding a theme her campaign had emphasized in recent days. "I've been called many things by many people, quitter is not one of them," she said.
Standing on a platform set in the middle of a grassy memorial to Franklin D. Roosevelt on the East River island named after him, Mrs. Clinton invoked his legacy. She also praised President Obama and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, but declared that "we face new challenges" in the aftermath of the economic crisis.
While some Republican detractors have tried to make an issue of Mrs. Clinton's age (if she won she would be 69 when she took office in January 2017), she sought to embrace it and to rebut the notion that she cannot stand for change or modernity. Offering her campaign contact information, she spoke about the lives of gay people, saying Republicans "turn their backs on gay people who love each other."
In one of the biggest applause lines, she said: "I may not be the youngest candidate in this race, but I will be the youngest woman president in the history of the United States."
Underscoring the point with a riff on an old Beatles song, Mrs. Clinton said: "There may be some new voices in the presidential Republican choir. But they're all singing the same old song."
"It's a song called 'Yesterday,' " she continued. "They believe in yesterday."
Allison Moore, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, called the speech "chock-full of hypocritical attacks, partisan rhetoric and ideas from the past that led to a sluggish economy."
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Mrs. Clinton specified policies she would push for, including universal prekindergarten, paid family leave, equal pay for women, college affordability and incentives for companies that provide profit-sharing to employees. She also spoke of rewriting the tax code "so it rewards hard work at home" rather than corporations "stashing profits overseas." She did not detail how she would achieve those policies or address their costs.
Mrs. Clinton spoke to the criticism that her wealth makes her out of touch with middle-class Americans, saying her candidacy is for "factory workers and food servers who stand on their feet all day, for the nurses who work the night shift, for the truckers who drive for hours."
Uncomfortable with the fiery rhetoric of Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, Mrs. Clinton offered some stark statistics to address the concerns of the Democratic Party's restless left. "The top 25 hedge fund managers make more than all of America's kindergarten teachers combined, often paying a lower tax rate," she said.
Mrs. Clinton said many Americans must be asking, "When does my family get ahead?" She added: "When? I say now."
In a campaign in which Republicans have emphasized the growing threat of Islamic terrorism and an unstable Middle East, Mrs. Clinton hardly mentioned foreign policy. She did speak of her experience as a senator from New York after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"As your president, I'll do whatever it takes to keep Americans safe," she said, weaving the skyline and a view of the newly built One World Trade Center into her remarks.
For as much as the content of the speech mattered, the theater of it was equally important. For a campaign criticized for lacking passion, the event gave Mrs. Clinton the ability to create a camera-ready tableau of excitement.
The Brooklyn Express Drumline revved up the crowd assembled on a narrow stretch at the southern tip of the island. And Marlon Marshall, the campaign's director of political engagement, rattled off statistics about the number of volunteers who have signed up and house parties held in the early nominating states. A section with giant screens set up for an overflow crowd stood nearly empty.
But a crowd of supporters and volunteers from the staunchly Democratic New York area does not exactly represent the electorate writ large. The real test for Mrs. Clinton and how the speech was perceived will be in Iowa, where she was to travel on Saturday evening for several events. Iowa, the first nominating state, shunned her the last time she sought the presidency, in 2008.
"I was disappointed she didn't challenge Obama four years ago," said Dominique Pettinato, a 24-year-old parole officer who lives in Brooklyn.
For some members of the skeptical liberal wing of the Democratic Party still concerned that Mrs. Clinton will embrace her husband's centrist approach, the speech went only so far in convincing them otherwise.
"This was mostly a typical Democratic speech — much better than the direction Republicans offer America," said Adam Green, a co-founder of Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a liberal advocacy group. But he said the speech had not offered "the bold economic vision that most Americans want and need."
Mrs. Clinton did not broach one issue that liberals are increasingly frustrated by: trade. On Thursday, Senator Bernie Sanders, a socialist from Vermont who is also seeking the Democratic nomination, pointedly criticized Mrs. Clinton for not taking a position on a controversial trade bill Mr. Obama is pushing, as well as other contentious issues like the proposedKeystone XL oil pipeline and the renewal of the Patriot Act. "What is the secretary's point of view on that?" Mr. Sanders asked of the act, which he voted against.
Mrs. Clinton had hardly stopped speaking Saturday when Bill Hyers, a senior strategist for Martin O'Malley, the former governor of Maryland, who is also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, criticized her as vague on trade and other issues. Mr. O'Malley, he said, "has been fearless and specific in the progressive agenda we need."
If there is one demographic Mrs. Clinton's campaign is hoping to excite it is young women. It is an obvious connection that her 2008 campaign played down as it tried to present the former first lady as a strong commander in chief.
But on Saturday it was clear that Mrs. Clinton will make gender more central to her campaign this time. In her closing remarks, she called for a country "where a father can tell his daughter yes, you can be anything you want to be, even president of the United States."
Correction: June 13, 2015
An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of a woman who attended Hillary Rodham Clinton's speech. She is Dominique Pettinato, not Pettin. An earlier version also misstated part of a quote by Allison Moore, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. She said Mrs. Clinton's speech was "chock-full of hypocritical attacks," not hypothetical attacks.http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/us/hillary-clinton-attacks-republican-economic-policies-in-roosevelt-island-speech.html
Queen Hillary Is Just Another Corrupt Lying Bought and Paid For Phony Politician — Clinton Cash Bribe Laundering — Democratic Party Can Do A Lot Better — Run Jerry Run — Videos
Posted on April 20, 2015. Filed under: Blogroll, Books, Communications, Documentary, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), government spending, Law, Life, Links, media, Money, Non-Fiction, People, Philosophy, Photos, Politics, Press, Rants, Raves, Strategy, Talk Radio, Taxes, Video, War, Welfare, Wisdom, Writing | Tags: 20 April 2015, America, articles, Audio, Bill Clinton, Book, Breaking News, Bribe Laudering, bribes, Broadcasting, capitalism, Cartoons, CFR, Charity, Citizenship, Clarity, Classical Liberalism, Clinton Cash, Clinton Machine, Clinton Scandal, Collectivism, Commentary, Commitment, Communicate, Communication, Concise, Convincing, Corporations, Corruption, Council of Foreign Relations, Courage, Crimes, Criminal, Culture, Current Affairs, Current Events, Democracy, economic growth, economic policy, Economics, Education, Evil, Experience, Faith, Family, First, fiscal policy, Foreign Governments, free enterprise, freedom, freedom of speech, Friends, Give It A Listen, God, Good, Goodwill, Governor Jerry Brown, Growth, Hillary Clinton, Hope, Individualism, Jerry Brown, Knowledge, Law and Order, liberty, lies, Life, Love, Lovers of Liberty, Lying, monetary policy, MPEG3, National Security Agency, News, Non-fiction, NSA, Opinions, Peace, Peter schweizer, Phony, Photos, Podcasts, Political Philosophy, Politics, prosperity, Radio, Raymond Thomas Pronk, Representative Republic, Republic, Republicans, Resources, Respect, rule of law, Rule of Men, Scandals, Show Notes, Talk Radio, The Pronk Pops Show, The Pronk Pops Show 449, Trust, Truth, Tyranny, U.S. Constitution, United States of America, Videos, Virtue, voters, War, Who Do You Trust, Wisdom |
Story 1: Queen Hillary Is Just Another Corrupt Lying Bought and Paid For Phony Politician — Clinton Cash Bribe Laundering — Democratic Party Can Do A Lot Better — Run Jerry Run — Videos
("something for something" in Latin) means an exchange of goods or services, where one transfer is contingent upon the other.
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