Author: Hajar

Yemen truce breaks down. Over the weekend, the temporary truce between warring parties expired on Oct. 2, and for the first time since April, there was no agreement to extend it. Despite UN efforts to mediate a compromise, impasses exist in expanding the terms of the truce surrounding the payment of civil servants, the aerial and naval blockade, and road closures.

But before it did, Members of Congress sent a letter to Blinken urging the use of US leverage to lift Saudi blockade.

HUGE: The US military purchased access to over 90% of the world’s internet traffic data, including “people’s email data, browsing history, and other information such as their sensitive internet cookies.” Team Cymru, the private company selling this internet monitoring tool, “Augury,” states on its website that it provides “access to a super majority of all activity on the internet.” Motherboard’s investigation revealed that at least $3.5 million was spent by the US Navy, Cyber Command, and Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency to access the tool. And, a US government procurement record indicates that Augury has over 550 collection points in at least 5 continents and “is updated with at least 100 billion new records each day.”

Senator Wyden wrote to the oversight branches of the DHS, DOJ, and DOD in response to a whistleblower contacting his office regarding the Naval Criminal Investigative Service’s use of Augury. Senator Wyden’s letter requests an investigation into “the warrantless purchase and use of Americans’ internet browsing records… [to] ensure that the government’s surveillance activities are consistent with the Supreme Court’s Carpenter decision and safeguard Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights.”

Newly disclosed OLC memos uncover the Executive’s war on congressional war powers…

As Congress threatens to pass a War Powers Resolution, the truce in Yemen is extended for 2 more months. The UN announced that the warring parties in Yemen have agreed to extend the current truce for two more months, which was originally set to expire yesterday. However, thorny issues still remain unresolved, leading to a shorter truce with weaker terms than expected. This comes as 113 representatives and 8 Senators have cosponsored the Yemen War Powers Resolutions (H.J.Res.87 and S.J.Res.56, respectively), which would end US support for Saudi-UAE-led coalitions’ offensive operations in Yemen.

Last month, the House passed a $839 billion National Defense Authorization Act…

More than 5 dozen orgs welcome the ceasefire in Yemen, and call on Congress to pass a War Powers Resolution to end US support for the war on Yemen once and for all. A national coalition of diverse organizations penned a letter to Congress urging the immediate passage of a War Powers Resolution to end the US’s support for the Saudi-UAE-led coalition’s war on Yemen. The letter calls for Congress to take advantage of an important window for diplomacy the two-month UN-brokered ceasefire provides and incentivize Saudi Arabia to stay at the negotiating table by supporting a forthcoming War Powers Resolution promoted by Reps. Jayapal and DeFazio. Part of the current ceasefire’s terms include lifting the Saudi-imposed blockade. Already, some previously barred fuel ships have been able to enter Yemen’s Hodeidah port, though complications have arisen in lifting the air blockade on Sanaa airport as last week the first commercial flight out of the airport in six years was indefinitely postponed, with both sides exchanging blame. However later in the week, Saudi Arabia announced they were releasing 163 Houthi prisoners in order to further solidify the truce.

The FBI queried warrantlessly obtained Section 702 data as many as 3.4 million times last year…

Biden’s new budget proposal increases military spending; Progressives push back. The President’s new FY 2023 budget request is out, and to the chagrin of advocates hoping to lower – or even flatten – defense-related spending, the budget calls for a whopping $813 billion in military spending, a $31 billion increase from the recently passed FY 2022 appropriations bill (and $60 billion more than what Biden requested last year). This would put the US on track to spending $8 trillion on military over the next decade. Congressional Progressive Caucus leaders released a statement rallying against the increased Pentagon spending (noting half of it will likely go to private defense contractors) and asking why in the face of unquestioned military spending increases, they have been “forced to pinch pennies for decades when it comes to investments in working families.” Jake Johnston, writes more on this at Common Dreams. Paul Waldman asks another important question in WaPo: will this increase in military spending even make us safer?

The Ukrainian government is receiving access to facial recognition technology…

After Zelenskyy’s plea to Congress, Biden approves another $800mn in military assistance. After Ukrainian President Zelenskyy addressed US Congress, using the imagery of 9/11, Pearl Harbor, and Mount Rushmore to ask for further sanctions on Russia and for the imposition of a no-fly zone (which could lead to some seriously bad consequences), Biden approved another $800mn in emergency military assistance, bringing this week’s total to $1 billion. Last week Congress passed a $13.6 billion aid package to Ukraine as part of the omnibus spending package, $3 billion of which is for weapons. While military support for Ukraine is quite popular in the media right now, we wanted to share some critiques of flooding more weapons into the conflict, and potential unintended consequences that you may have otherwise missed.

CIA black site detainee Ammar al-Baluchi “was repeatedly slammed against a wall while naked until all trainees received ‘certification,’”…

Huge: Sens. Heinrich and Wyden reveal the CIA is conducting bulk surveillance of financial records and… something else. According to their letter, the CIA has been operating these programs for years, acquiring not only financial transactions but also some other kind of record — in bulk. The released documents also make clear that this surveillance is impacting people in the United States. Most notable to us is the CIA’s explicit reliance on “the President’s inherent constitutional authority to collect foreign intelligence.” This may sound familiar to the dozens of members who asked several still-unanswered questions about Executive Order 12333 way back in 2020. The NY Times, among others, has the story here. Cato’s Pat Eddington, who has been hunting these documents for years, discusses the revelations here.

Lawmakers declare intent to push another War Powers Resolution due to ongoing US support for war on Yemen…

The IRS is forcing taxpayers “to submit to facial recognition in exchange for being able to complete a range of basic tax-related activities online,” according to The Atlantic. We first heard of this through Brian Krebs’s excellent blog, and while the IRS claims taxes can still be submitted without facial recognition in paper, civil liberties advocates consider the move an extreme step in the wrong direction. Per The Atlantic, “the company frames its technology in misleading ways,” and as a reminder, NIST previously studied facial recognition and found “false positives for Asian and African American faces relative to images of Caucasions. The differentials often ranged from a factor of 10 to 100 times.” WaPo has more here, and Edward Hasbrouck detailed how hard it is to avoid the new system here.

Thursday: DHS Intelligence and Analysis nominee, Ken Wainstein, heads to HSGAC with major questions looming over his involvement with illegal surveillance …