SECRECY & THE SECURITY STATE - page 26

A spokesman for the Department of Defense brushed aside a deadline set by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to divulge the full details of how ten US sailors were captured last month in Iranian waters. In a briefing Tuesday, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook rejected criticism lodged by the Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman. McCain claimed earlier this week the administration has been slow-walking a full debrief of the incident. “The Navy is doing its due diligence, following its protocols with these ten sailors and with this incident in…

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In a unanimous vote on Wednesday, a Senate committee advanced a resolution holding the online advertiser Backpage.com in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a Senate investigation into sex trafficking. Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) introduced the measure. The two have been leading a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee probe into human trafficking that ensnared Backpage—an online competitor to Craigslist.com The senators claim to have turned up hundreds of cases of illegal sex trafficking that could be linked…

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President Obama’s timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan was tested on Thursday, when the commander of American troops there questioned its viability before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Gen. John Campbell said that administration plans to reduce the number of US fighters in Afghanistan to 5,500 by the start of next year is “based on certain assumptions” that may or may not hold. “If the Afghans cannot improve,” Campbell cautioned, “we’re going to have to make some adjustments and that means that number will most likely go up.”…

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There is renewed hope on Capitol Hill that lawmakers may get around to updating a 30-year-old privacy law that allows the government to read citizens’ old emails without a warrant. On Wednesday, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), announced that the panel would mark up the Email Privacy Act with an eye on advancing the bill in March to a full House vote. “It’s clear that the law needs to be modernized and updated to ensure it keeps pace with ever-changing technologies so…

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Another high profile progressive in the Senate is concerned by how Republicans have seized hold of the criminal justice reform debate, accusing opponents across the aisle of holding up a bipartisan agreement to shield white-collar criminals from prosecution. In a speech on the floor of the Senate Wednesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said the majority leaders would not advance changes to federal mandatory minimum sentences passed last year by the Senate Judiciary Committee unless Congress also approves of a mens rea bill—a measure that could allow corporate…

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A government watchdog played the role of high school math teacher on Monday, knocking the Department of Justice for not showing its work while keeping watch over states that have legalized marijuana. DOJ officials admitted to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that they “did not see a benefit in DOJ documenting how it would monitor the effect of state marijuana legalization,” despite a prior department guidance recommending they do so, and internal regulations calling for the creation of such a paper trail. The admission came in…

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The Department of Homeland Security is struggling to account for over a billion dollars it recently spent on training, according to its internal auditor. The DHS Office of Inspector General said Wednesday that it found “significant discrepancies” between the department’s 2014 training budget and and what it can actually document spending during the fiscal year. “[I]n FY 2014, Congress provided more than $1.4 billion for DHS training, but DHS only reported $1.9 million in training costs to [the Office of Personnel Management],” the IG report…

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Pentagon strategists have started planning for the possibility that the US will keep troops in Afghanistan “for decades” and beyond only months after President Obama reversed a withdrawal timetable that would have seen American forces pullout almost entirely by the end of this year. Senior military commanders and ex-Obama administration officials “increasingly” see America’s role in the country as similar to those played by the US in South Korea and Colombia, The Washington Post reported Tuesday. In the former, the US has kept “tens of…

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