QUESTION: Alan Bjerga from Bloomberg News. Yesterday, the Administration said that it was going to be increasing civilian presence in Afghanistan. I’m wondering, from a USDA and USAID standpoint, how many more boots on the ground do you expect to be putting down?
SECRETARY VILSACK: We currently have 54 people in country and another 10 are on their way. And we’ll have an opportunity after this visit not only to thank those workers, but also to evaluate what additional assistance may be necessary. It isn’t just necessarily government boots on the ground; it’s also ways in which we can partner with the many land grant universities and other universities that are providing assistance and help, as well as working with USAID.
So we’re going to have a significant presence. I suspect and know that over the short time, all it’s going to increase. And I also know that there’s already significant work being done, from planting additional trees, up to 3 million additional trees in a forestation effort, to building storage facilities, to improving productivity, there’s good work being done.
from U.S. Government Agriculture Sector Programs in Afghanistan and Upcoming Travel to the Region Briefing with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, and SRAP Richard C. Holbrooke Washington, DC | January 7, 2010 (link)
… And the rationale for the all-source, multi-agency NCTC is all about intelligence sharing. But remember: the inputs are that the guy’s dad says he’s dangerous; he’s Nigerian; he might be in Yemen; and al-Qaeda in Yemen may be looking to use a Nigerian in a forthcoming attack. Is that really enough?
The answer to that question most certainly requires a policy decision, not an intelligence decision. The intelligence community is drinking from a fire hose of data, a lot of it much more specific than what was acquired on Abdulmutallab. If policymakers decide that these thin reeds will be the standard for stopping someone from entering the United States, then they need to change the process to enshrine that in the no-fly system. But it will make it much harder for people who aren’t threatening to enter, a move that will ripple out to effect diplomacy, security relationships (good luck entering the U.S. for a military-to-military contact program if, say, you’re a member of the Sunni Awakening in Iraq, since you had contacts with known extremists), international business and trade, and so on. Are we prepared for that?
2009 IG Inspection Says No Fly List Reduce Vulnerabilities, but Additional Vulnerabilities May Exist
The Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security this past July released a redacted report on the Role of the No Fly and Selectee Lists in Securing Commercial Aviation. The report includes background on the Secure Flight Program Implementation, Terrorist Screening Database, the No Fly and Selectee Lists and other Watch Lists Derived From the Terrorist Screening Database. The OIG in its review writes that the No Fly and Selectee Lists reduce vulnerabilities to commercial aviation security, but that additional vulnerabilities may exist:
“The No Fly and Selectee lists are subsets of the TSDB, the federal government’s consolidated watch list. The name inclusion criteria for these two lists are more narrowly focused and restrictive than the inclusion criteria for the entire TSDB. Specifically, the No Fly and Selectee lists focus on aviation security and concentrate on [REDACTED].
Although the No Fly and Selectee lists are largely successful in identifying potential terrorists who could threaten commercial aviation, some individuals not included on the lists may also present threats to aviation security.”
Below is an excerpt from the report on the No Fly and Selectee Lists section:
No Fly and Selectee Lists
The No Fly and Selectee lists, two TSDB derivative watch lists, are unique among all watch lists derived from the TSDB. They are the only derivative watch lists that have their own minimum substantive derogatory criteria requirements. These requirements are considerably more stringent than the TSDB’s known or reasonably suspected standard. Additionally, the No Fly and Selectee lists have the narrowest minimum biographic inclusion criteria of all TSDB watch lists.
Minimum Inclusion Criteria
The No Fly and Selectee inclusion criteria were initially established in October 2004 by the Homeland Security Council. This council is a cabinet-level body that coordinates homeland security–related activities and promotes effective homeland security policy development and implementation. The No Fly and Selectee Lists Implementation Guidance accompanying the inclusion criteria was released in January 2005. When establishing the initial criteria, responsibility for maintenance and export of the lists was transferred to the TSC. Prior to this time, TSA maintained the No Fly and Selectee lists. The lists were created in September 2001, before TSA was established, when the Federal Aviation Administration received 125 names from the FBI for inclusion on a No Fly list.
No Fly List Criteria
The TSC updated and supplemented the implementation guidance in July 2006. Recently, the Homeland Security Council [REDACTED] to allow for inclusion of more individuals on the No Fly list. The TSC’s Policy Board Working Group followed suit with new implementation guidance, all of which went into effect in June 2008. Appendix D provides more detail on the No Fly and Selectee List Implementation Guidance (DS note: guidance extensively redacted).
Two paragraphs [REDACTED]
Selectee List Criteria
The derogatory information criteria for including an individual on the Selectee list require that an individual who is ineligible for inclusion on the No Fly list meet [REDACTED] the Selectee list criteria. Specifically, the Selectee list should include any person, regardless of citizenship, who is: [REDACTED]
[REDACTED]
In applying more narrow requirements than the TSDB’s minimum substantive derogatory criteria requirements, the No Fly and Selectee lists are intended to prevent specific categories of terrorists from boarding commercial aircraft or subject these terrorists to secondary screening prior to boarding, and are not for use as law enforcement or intelligence-gathering tools. Past and present implementation guidance emphasizes that the criteria for the No Fly list require a [REDACTED] and that the Selectee list is not a default for those who do not qualify for inclusion on the No Fly list.
The current minimum biographic inclusion criteria for the No Fly and Selectee lists, which were not changed during the June 2008 policy revisions, require a [REDACTED] for a TSDB record to export to either list. [REDACTED] Given the restrictive derogatory and biographic criteria for inclusion on the No Fly and Selectee lists, these lists combined comprise the smallest exported subset of the TSDB. As of May 2008, the No Fly list contained approximately [REDACTED] records, and the Selectee list contained approximately [REDACTED] records, collectively comprising of the TSDB’s records. Additionally, the combined number of No Fly and Selectee records represents approximately [REDACTED] distinct identities, of which are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.
Process for Inclusion on the No Fly and Selectee Lists
Redundancies in the process through which individuals are added to the No Fly or Selectee list ensure that the proper individuals are watch-listed. For international terrorists, this process starts with a federal agency, usually a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community, nominating an individual for inclusion in TIDE. The NCTC’s Terrorist Identities Group reviews nominations for the reliability of derogatory information and the sufficiency of biographic identifying information.
Nominating agencies can recommend an individual for inclusion on specific TSDB derivative watch lists, such as the No Fly and Selectee lists. Additionally, although the NCTC is not a nominator, its Terrorist Identities Group analysts, after reviewing all source intelligence information, may identify eligible individuals for watch-listing and contact the originator of the intelligence to request that the individual be nominated for inclusion in TIDE with specific watch list recommendations. Domestic terrorists are nominated to the TSDB via the FBI’s Terrorist Review and Examination Unit, by FBI case agents, and by the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division; also, each of these can make specific watch list recommendations.
[REDACTED] the NCTC transmits to the TSC an export of additions and modifications of biographic and biometric identifiers from TIDE, resulting in additions, modifications, and deletions to the TSDB. These transmissions are collectively referred to as nominations. Analysts in the Nominations and Data Integrity Unit at the TSC perform a comprehensive review of each nomination for inclusion eligibility in the TSDB and for appropriateness of export to the various watch lists. As part of this review, TSC analysts review specific recommendations for initial No Fly or Selectee watch-listing, as well as follow-up recommendations for changes to an individual’s No Fly or Selectee status. This review ensures that recommendations are consistent with the biographic and derogatory inclusion criteria. Appendix E provides a graphic representation of the No Fly and Selectee list nomination process.
When TSC analysts recommend a change to an individual’s No Fly or Selectee status, the nomination is forwarded to TSA subject matter experts (SME), who are detailed to the TSC from TSA’s Office of Intelligence and Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS). The SMEs review the previous analyst’s notes and all accessible derogatory information associated with the nomination. When SMEs determine that a change to the No Fly or Selectee status is warranted, TSA coordinates the change with the FBI’s Terrorist Review and Examination Unit and case agents for FBI investigative subjects, or with the NCTC for nominations from other federal agencies.
Domestic terrorism nominations go through a similar process. TSC domestic terrorism SMEs also review nominations for TSDB inclusion eligibility and for appropriateness to export to various watch lists, including the No Fly and Selectee lists. The SMEs coordinate with the Terrorist Review and Examination Unit to resolve any issues with a nomination or its watch-listing recommendation.
Other Watch Lists Derived From the Terrorist Screening Database
In addition to the No Fly and Selectee lists, the TSDB exports daily to three other federal watch lists that are also used to conduct terrorism screening. Although none of these databases has its own minimum substantive derogatory criteria beyond the known or reasonably suspected standard, each has minimum biographic criteria requirements and some have additional restrictions.
The databases include: 1) U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s TECS Database,
2) Department of State’s Consular Lookout and Support System |The Department of State’s Consular Lookout and Support System (CLASS) is a name-checking system used to screen visa applications for travel to the United States. A visa allows a foreign national to travel to a U.S. port of entry to request admittance into the country. Administered by the Visa Office within the Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, CLASS is used by consular officers abroad to screen the names of visa applicants against a number of government watch lists, including an exported subset of the TSDB. Once a CLASS name search identifies an individual, and that identity is verified, Department of State consular officers make a determination of visa eligibility according to federal law. 3) Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Violent Gang and Terrorist Organization File and one other list: Additional Non-Federal Watch List Terrorist Screening Database Exports.
The OIG report provided one recommendation to TSA:
We recommend that the Assistant Secretary, Transportation Security Administration:
Recommendation #1: Determine whether it is appropriate to [REDACTED] to No Fly restrictions or additional screening prior to boarding an aircraft.
TSA Response: TSA concurred in part with this recommendation. In its response, TSA management said the nomination criteria for each list produced from the TSDB are developed and approved by a multiagency working group overseen by the Homeland Security Council. Each individual nominated to a terrorist watch list must independently meet the nomination criteria in order to be watch-listed. [REDACTED] would require an amendment to the nomination criteria.
[REDACTED] on the No Fly and Selectee lists, TSA said the only apparent and effective way to ensure that these individuals are restricted from boarding an aircraft or undergo additional screening would be to add them to the No Fly or Selectee list. TSA management said this would [REDACTED], and raises privacy and other concerns. [REDACTED] listed on the No Fly or Selectee list meet the criteria for nomination to either list, these individuals will be placed on the list.
TSA management responded further that it will need to explore this issue with other interested agencies to determine whether [REDACTED] on the No Fly and Selectee lists to these lists is a prudent step that would enhance security. However, given the privacy and rights issues involved in this recommendation, TSA management said that it is highly unlikely the lists would be [REDACTED] in this manner.
Some quite meaty blind quotes if you ask me, not just from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, er make that from the 3Ds. But if there’s smoke, there’s fire. So the fact that these relationship and personality problems are leaking out means that whatever other larger problems we have in Afghanistan, our first problem appears to be with the Team USA tent we have pitched in Kabul.
Quote 1: A US Development officer says:
“They absolutely flooded the zone.” […]"There must have been hundreds of them. They were in every province, every village, talking to everyone. There were 10 of them for every one of us."
Quote 2: A senior State Department official says with a tinge of bitterness:
"What a shock. If you deploy a gang squad, they're going to find a gang." […] "They were looking for an insurgency and they found one."
Quote 3: From an Eikenberry colleague:
"McChrystal came in and he just thought he was some kind of Roman proconsul, a [Douglas] MacArthur." […] "He was going to run the whole thing. He didn't need to consult with the State Department or civilians, let alone the ambassador. This was not only the military's show, it was his show."
Quote 4: A senior Pentagon official:
The PACC is "a stovepipe operation" [….]. "It's beautiful. It's headed up by McChrystal acolytes, former special operations officers who view him [McChrystal] as their patron. So they follow his lead. And there is no requirement for them to share any of the information they get from Kabul with the State Department or anyone else - let alone with Eikenberry. This is McChrystal's game. The PACC people in Washington pass information to McChrystal without going through any channels and they take the best information from Kabul and they brief [JCS chairman Admiral Mike] Mullen - and he briefs the president. So during the run-up to the Afghanistan decision, the military always looked current. They had the best information. Everyone else looked like a bunch of amateurs. Eikenberry was out of the loop. He had no chop [influence] on any of it. They just ran circles around him."
Quote 5: A senior State Department official in Washington:
"We kept saying 'we need to open up to the other side, like we did in Iraq with the Anbar insurgency,' and the military kept saying, 'well this isn't Iraq.' And so we'd answer: 'fine, so if Afghanistan isn't Iraq, then why do you keep talking about a surge?' And we never got an answer."
Quote 6: One State Department employee says:
"You can only be treated like a bunch of idiots for so long before you get fed up," […]. "It was PowerPoint after PowerPoint, all filled with this lingo and it all sounded pretty scientific. But it all amounted to the same thing - who do we kill. Well, it won't work."
There are at least three individuals in the article who are not wearing paper bags over their heads: James Clad, a former Pentagon deputy assistant secretary of defense for South Asia; Graham Fuller, a former Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Kabul and Andrew Bacevich, the dean of America's military thinkers.
Last month, Jack Lew, the State Department’s Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources, visited Camp Atterbury-Muscatatuck Center for Complex Operations in Indiana and had a town hall.
Here is part of what he said:
“This is really important work. It’s really hard work. We have a lot of confidence in all of you as you go out to Afghanistan to be able to make a difference. And here in a week and a day, when it’s a new beginning for the government there, it’s a time of hope for the people there, we can’t lose sight of the challenges. You’re going to be dealing with bureaucratic challenges, political challenges, security challenges, and people who may not always be motivated the way we would want them to be motivated. I have confidence that each of you can make a difference in the work you do, and I hope the training here has helped prepare you to go out and be as effective as we know you can be.”
They had a Q&A for about 10 minutes with about half a dozen questions. One question on expanding participating agencies, another one on program continuity, excerpted below:
QUESTION: Thank you, sir, for the opportunity. My question is related to the participating agencies in the mission. Are there any plans to expand the number of participating agencies, i.e., Department of Transportation?
DEPUTY SECRETARY LEW: The Department of Transportation is already helping out with a number of functions, so they’re in the – not a great number, but there’s a handful of people from the Department of Transportation.[…]We didn’t sit down and say, we need X, Y, and Z agencies involved. We identified – ultimately the 974 positions that we’re now filling are 974 specific position descriptions. Each of you was recruited because you have a core capability to help with one of those, or a number – a set of those missions. And that’s what makes it challenging to recruit civilians, because you don’t – you can’t just ask for a team of a hundred people who do agricultural work or a team of a hundred people who do rule of law work. If there’s more work for the Department of Transportation, my conversations with the Department of Transportation lead me to believe that they are fully prepared to be part of the effort.
QUESTION: […] But in this short a time, I wouldn’t think it will be effective enough to complete the mission. And I myself hate that I’ll start something and leave it in the middle and then come back and somebody else will come after me, start from the beginning again.
DEPUTY SECRETARY LEW: One of the challenges in crisis and post-crisis missions is continuity of program. These are not programs where you have decades to do it, so you have to work intensely in a short period of time, but we have deployments that have not traditionally been long enough. One of the things about the mission, and what all of you have signed onto, is a longer assignment than, historically, civilians have been taking. The fact that you have made commitments for a year is a huge improvement in terms of continuity, from a situation where we would send civilians out for three months at a time. People can do a lot of good work in three months, but the number of transitions makes continuity very challenging.So the fact that we’re in the process of building a civilian force from 320 to almost a thousand, and that will be, for the most part, full-year commitments addresses that issue right off the bat. I don’t think that we’ll get most people to sign up for two and three years, but we are encouraging people to make multi-year commitments.I think we have to be realistic that these are difficult assignments, and if we make the standard that you can only do this work if you do it for two or three years, that will artificially limit the effectiveness of our ability to get people in the right place at the right time. On the other hand, we are very much going to encourage and support multi-year commitments.We’re also going to try and stagger the turnover. We’re going to try and not have it be that everyone comes and goes on the same day. Part of the challenge in these transitions and the continuity is that the hand-off – it’s kind of like being in an American hospital on July 4th weekend. Everybody’s new. You don’t want to be sick in America on July 4th.A lot of the turnover in programs like this has tended, because of the schedule of Foreign Service assignments – has been all at once, partially because we’ve been staffing up gradually over an extensive period. People’s years will end at different times. And we’re very conscious of it, and building in with Kabul – with our Embassy in Kabul – a plan to not have the kind of sudden transition that really does create a problem in continuity. The military has been very effective in a lot of places, and Foreign Service has been very effective in a lot of places with these kinds of short-term but very intense assignments.I think going to a year for the basic assignment is a huge step forward. Having the transitions be smoother is a second one. And I think you put your finger on what is a critical challenge. These are not 12-month projects. The – many of the development projects that we’re going to be undertaking in the traditional development context take many years. We don’t have many years to show progress, because it’s a situation where if we can’t show progress quickly, the political reality on the ground won’t be there where it needs to be to keep moving forward.But that doesn’t mean you finish the job. Showing progress and finishing the job are different. We need to be able to show progress quickly, and then have a realistic trajectory towards the kinds of objectives, and ultimately the transfer of responsibility, from international and American staff and military, to Afghans.
In any case, at the HFAC the other day, Secretary Clinton also mentioned the magic number of 974 for the civilian surge in Afghanistan:
"The civilian effort is bearing fruit. Civilian experts and advisors are helping to craft policy inside government ministries, providing development assistance in the field, and when our marines went into Nawa province this last July, we had civilians on the ground with them to coordinate assistance the very next day. As our operations progress, our civ-mil coordination will grow even stronger. We are on track to triple the number of civilian positions to 974 by early in January. On average, each of these civilians leverages 10 partners ranging from locally employed staff to experts with U.S.-funded NGOs."
You might remember that in the October 26 briefing that D/Secretary Lew did on the civilian hiring in Afghanistan, one reporter inquired about the sector-wise breakdown of this 974 figure. It was not available at that time, and I have not seen a follow up post on the solicited information from PA. The briefing did indicate that out of the 974 people, 64 will come from the Department of Agriculture and 128 positions will come from the Department of Justice. State has a total of 423 while USAID’s total number will be 333.
D/Secretary Lew also said this: “So we’re doing pretty well in terms of identifying candidates. We’re not seeing that there’s a lack – we’re seeing a great deal of enthusiasm and interest in going to post. I think that it speaks again both to the – how critical the mission is, and that it’s seen as joining a team that’s doing very important work.”
So there's no talk about going through that silly exercise called "Prime Candidate" again (real life not reality show) as was done previously. Thank goodness! But I am still curious about the breakdown of the 974 figure agency and sector-wise and most particularly interested on the composition of the 756 personnel coming from both State/USAID.
How many of the 756 are coming from the regular Foreign Service? Regular USAID?
How many are on Limited Non-Career Appointments (LNA) like Matthew Hoh?
How many are When Actually Employed (WAE) employees (retired Foreign Service personnel with limited work hours)?
How many are Foreign Service National (FSNs or LES) employees from other US Missions, borrowed for temporary duty in Afghanistan?
The 974 number is for Afghanistan alone. By the way, nobody is even talking very much these days about the staffing need at US Embassy Baghdad post-military drawdown or the staffing need at US Mission Pakistan with the expected expansion there. Also not discussed during these briefings are the number of life support personnel who will accompany the deployment of the 974 individuals.
Anyway -- the core question is a simple one -- how much of this specific civilian surge has the State Department been able to grow on its own? And perhaps, more importantly, how much will be outsourced, since almost nothing can be done anywhere anymore these days without contractors.
I am also interested for one other reason. Although additional hiring has been authorized recently for the Foreign Service, the demand still outpaces the supply at this point. Which means that if -- the entire 473 personnel going to Afghanistan are coming from the regular Foreign Service, there will be 473 slots at home and at 265 embassies/consulates that will go unfilled. Unfilled until new people are brought in, trained and sent off as replacements and all that will not happen overnight. In addition, some 450+ personnel most certainly will be needed for the inbound rotation to Afghanistan in fiscal year 2011. Beyond that, who knows?
The Blog of Legal Times has an October 1 update on the Horn v. Huddle case:
A tentative settlement has been reached in a long-running suit that alleges a former intelligence agent and a State Department official unlawfully eavesdropped on a DEA agent, potentially bringing the state secrets case to an abrupt close and sparing the Justice Department a loss on appeal.
Justice lawyers filed notices yesterday evening about the proposed settlement. The notices were filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where the case is pending, and in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where the case was filed in 1994. The agreement was reached through the assistance of the D.C. Circuit’s appellate mediation program. The lawyers asked for a 30-day hold on the proceedings in both courts.[…][T]he potential for an adverse appellate ruling against Justice could vanish if the plaintiff, Richard Horn, settles with defendants Arthur Brown and Franklin Huddle Jr. Justice is paying private lawyers to represent Brown, a former CIA agent, and Huddle, a former State Department official.
“Interagency rivalries and jealousies diminished the overall effectiveness of the mission. The effort to instill a “One Team, One Mission” approach was still more aspiration than fact.”
Inspection of Embassy Maputo, Mozambique (ISP-I-09-05A)Excerpted from Office of Inspector General Semiannual Report to the Congress, October 1, 2008 to March 31, 2009 | PDF
I did not make up that title --- just tweaked it from the Court of Appeals decision on the Horn v. Huddle case heard before ROGERS, BROWN and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.I am reprinting excerpts from the decision below. This seems like a convoluted way to get somebody's assignment involuntary curtailed, don't you think?
Concurring and dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge BROWN(excerpt):
Once the privileged material is removed, Horn is essentially left with three pieces of circumstantial evidence —a cable, a table, and Huddle’s apparent lie. I question whether a reasonable person would seriously entertain the possibility, based on that evidence alone, that Huddle learned of Horn’s statement via a wiretap. One wonders if the atmosphere of government intrigue in this case — an atmosphere carefully cultivated by Horn and unfortunately only exacerbated by the government’s invocation of the state secrets privilege — is in fact doing much of the work in the majority’s determination that Horn has established a prima facie case on such skimpy evidence. Would a reasonable person really think Horn had established a prima facie case with the same circumstantial evidence if he was an OSHA inspector in Hoboken?
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge ROGERS (excerpt).
[…]Horn’s basic claim is straightforward: Late at night on August 12, 1993, he placed a phone call from his personal residence to a DEA subordinate, David Sikorra. He expressed concern that Huddle was trying to expel him from Burma and that DEA might respond by closing its Burma office. Soon thereafter, Horn learned of a cable, since declassified in part, that Huddle sent to State Department officials in Washington, D.C. This cable, which is dated August 13, 1993, contains an unclassified paragraph that reads:
Finally, Horn shows increasing signs of evident strain.Late last night, for example, he telephoned his junioragent to say that “I am bringing the whole DEAoperation down here.” “You will be leaving with me . . . We’ll all leave together.” In this context, he then went on to note talks with [DEA officials] Greene and Maher without explicitly drawing a connection.
Cable from Franklin Huddle, American Embassy, Rangoon, Burma, to Secretary of State, Washington, D.C. ¶ 6 (Aug. 13, 1993) (“Huddle Cable”) (ellipses in original). On the basis of this cable, which Horn claims quotes him verbatim, Horn concluded that someone was eavesdropping on his personal conversation with Sikorra.
In an unclassified and unprivileged affidavit submitted to the district court, Huddle insisted instead that Horn’s conversation had spread by word of mouth. Huddle averred that he told the IG investigators that the information in the cable was provided to him by DEA Special Agent Bruce Stubbs. Special Agent Stubbs, for his part, denied, in the declassified portion of the IG report, telling anything to Huddle about Horn’s conversation with Sikorra. According to unclassified and unprivileged information, Stubbs was on official travel during the relevant time period and told IG investigators that he neither saw Huddle in person nor contacted him by telephone. Stubbs insisted that he did not learn of Horn’s conversation with Sikorra until he returned to Rangoon on August 26, 1993, almost two weeks after Huddle sent the cable to the State Department.
Further, Stubbs swore in an unclassified and unprivileged affidavit that Huddle had contacted him while the IG investigation was pending to discuss how Stubbs had told Huddle about Horn’s statement. Stubbs averred that he had no such recollection and that Huddle’s telephone call was improper, to which Huddle responded that he was merely “prescreening [Stubbs] to determine [his] recollections of Horn’s allegations.” Stubbs Aff. para. 8. This aspect of Stubbs’ affidavit is supported by a file memorandum that he wrote on September 22, 1994, the day after he was contacted by Huddle. When confronted with Stubbs’ affidavit, Huddle told investigators in writing that he “stand[s] by [his] statement.” Huddle Stmt. (Nov. 7, 1995).
Horn thus contends, in view of the unclassified and unprivileged materials, that he has demonstrated a prima facie case because the district court found that the redacted cable showed eavesdropping as the source of information, and the declassified interviews with personnel then stationed at the Embassy in Rangoon establish that Huddle did not learn of Horn’s conversation, either verbatim or otherwise, from Stubbs or anybody else, leaving unconstitutional surveillance as the only remaining option. Although Horn has no direct evidence that Huddle participated in an unlawful surveillance, he relies on the following circumstantial evidence:
First, in November 1992 there was a suspicious entry intohis apartment in Burma when, unsolicited, his government issued rectangular coffee table was swapped for an oval replacement while he was out of town. He was advised that his“original coffee table was needed to complete a sofa set at another residence.” Memorandum from Richard A. Horn onQuestionable Furniture Movement para. 3 (Feb. 27, 1995). Horncharacterized this conduct as “peculiar” and notes that “[a]telephone was located in this room within close proximity to the aforementioned coffee table.” Id. para. 4.
Second, Horn traces the limited spread among Embassy personnel of his conversation with Sikorra, emphasizing that Huddle’s source was specific enough to allow Huddle to use quotation marks and ellipses in the cable. In declassified statements, Sikorra explained that he told only a secretary, Mary Weinhold, about the disturbing telephone call; Mrs. Weinhold explained that no one could have overheard her conversation with Sikorra and that she does not recall having told her husband, who also worked at the Embassy, about Horn’s conversation; Mr. Weinhold corroborated his wife’s recollection; and Huddle’s deputy at the Embassy stated his belief that Huddle was aware of the conversation between Horn and Sikorra before he was.
The district court “verified that indeed, [the Huddle cable] is a verbatim reproduction of parts of Horn’s conversation with Sikorra, using quotation marks and ellipses, and a paraphrasing of other parts — evidence that Horn’s conversation had been wiretapped.” Mem. Op. of Feb. 10, 1997, at 4. Nonetheless, the district court found Horn’s allegations insufficient to establish a prima facie case. Mem. Op. of July 28, 2004, at 10. The district court reasoned that Defendant II’s identity is protected and that there is no unprivileged evidence connecting him to Horn’s allegations.
Related Item:
No. 04-5313 IN RE: SEALED CASE | Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 94cv01756) Argued December 14, 2006 | Decided June 29, 2007 | Unsealed July 20, 2007 PDF file
Horn v. Huddle, a 15-year old case that has been buried under state secrets grounds has resurfaced. On July 20, Chief Judge Royce Lambert unseals this case. The Court has also recently ordered the government to file with the Court unclassified versions of every document in the case and has denied the government’s assertion of state secrets privilege and proposed protective order.
Plaintiff claims violation of his Fourth Amendment rights under the Constitution. He alleges that “on or about August 12, 1993, Defendant II or someone acting on his behalf “tapped” his late night telephone call, recorded it and disclosed the contents to Defendant I.” […] Plaintiff further argues that “the purpose of the phone tap was to assist Defendant I in obtaining information that would justify Defendant I demanding plaintiff’s removal from Burma or otherwise justify expelling him directly.”
The Plaintiff alleges that “Defendant I sought Plaintiff’s removal from Burma as retaliation for Plaintiff sending reports to congressman that conflicted with State Department reports prepared by Defendant I.Plaintiff supports his accusation of wire tapping with the contents of a cable sent by Defendant I on or about August 13, 1993 to his superiors in the State Department that contained allegedly verbatim quotations from the August 12 phone conversation.”
See the 2004 filing here archived in Secrecy News. The PDF file with the Court originally dismissing this case on state secrets grounds is here. Other background materials from Richard Horn’s representative are here.
There must be a lesson here for interagency cooperation , if this ever gets to a trial stage. The problem is the Judge ain't happy. Originally the Court believed that nothing about Mr. Brown, including his name, was admissible at trial, and the case was dismissed. But apparently, Mr. Brown's identity was not in fact covert as of 2002. In its Memorandum Opinion dated January 15, 2009, the Court states that "Defendant Brown and the Office of General Counsel of the CIA perpetrated fraud on this court and the Court of Appeals." This case has been on since 1994, so through three administrations now. I wonder who's going to get thrown under the bus when this is over?
Related Items:
Richard Horn v. Franklin Huddle, Jr. et al. : Civil Action No. 94-1756 (RCL) July 16, 2009: PDF
Richard Horn v. Franklin Huddle, Jr. et al. : Civil Action No. 94-1756 (RCL) July 20, 2009: PDF
See below an expanded list of the documents related to this case posted in Scribd. Note that a Pacer Login is required to access links from list below; click on toggle icon (rightmost black/white rectangle image) to read the document in full screen:
GAO's Jess Ford and State's DAS Sprague on Hill's Witness List
From 2000-2009, the GAO has written about 30 reports on visas and passports as they relate to border and homeland security.The earliest one I could locate that directly addressed passport issues is GAO-05-477 dated May 20, 2005 (State Department:Improvements Needed to Strengthen U.S. Passport Fraud Detection Efforts).In this report the GAO recommended that “the Secretary of State consider ways to improve interagency information sharing, establish a centralized and up-to-date fraud prevention library, consider augmenting fraud prevention staffing, assess the extent to which interoffice workload transfers may hinder fraud prevention, and strengthen fraud prevention training and oversight.There was a follow-up report on June 29, 2005 (GAO-05-853T: State Department: Improvements Needed to Strengthen U.S. Passport Fraud Detection Efforts) and a few more reports since then.
I am not at all surprised that Jess T. Ford, the Director of International Affairs and Trade at the GAO sounded a bit cautious during the recent hearing on passport vulnerabilities, saying that:
“State officials have known about vulnerabilities in the passport issuance process for many years but have failed to effectively address these vulnerabilities. Although State has proposed reasonable oversight measures for passport acceptance facilities in response to our prior recommendations, it is too early to determine whether these measures will be effective.”
The Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs, Brenda S. Sprague appeared at the same hearing saying that “We take seriously our responsibility to protect U.S. borders and the integrity of the U.S. passport through vigilant adjudication.”
She reported on the response taken by State to address the most recent GAO report and also on the creation of an Adjudication Policy and Process Review Working Group in mid-March to help further identify necessary improvements. This Working Group consists of five subgroups, which are:
• Restructuring of Adjudication Process and Oversight – This subgroup is reviewing the current adjudication program and working on recommendations to restructure our processes. Additionally, the subgroup is working on recommendations for a new adjudicative managerial oversight program.
• Adjudication Requirements and Standards – This subgroup is developing standardized desk and counter adjudication procedures. Additionally, it is developing standardized procedures for Passport Specialists regarding the use of the Social Security Number (SSN) and other commercial databases.
• Post-Issuance Audit – This subgroup is developing a statistically valid audit process for previously issued passports. The results from this audit will be used for future training purposes.
• Training Initiatives – This subgroup is identifying enhancements for fraud training for all Passport Specialists, Supervisors, and Fraud Prevention Managers (FPMs). It is reviewing the curriculum of the National Training Program (NTP), which we use for training our new employees, to ensure that it appropriately and thoroughly addresses the document verification requirements used by Passport Specialists. Also, the subgroup is identifying and recommending standard requirements for on-the-job training for new hires once they complete NTP and begin working with "live" (unapproved) applications. Additionally, it is developing standardized fraud awareness training for our courthouse and post office acceptance facilities.
• Technology – This subgroup is identifying technical and procedural vulnerabilities to the integrity of the passport process. Additionally, it is working on recommendations for improvement to our automated systems through access to additional databases.
Sprague also revealed that “prior to the GAO undercover test, CA officials had held ongoing meetings with federal and state government agencies regarding access to information and databases for citizenship and identity verification. As a result of the GAO's recent recommendation, I also sent a letter to all State Registrars asking for their assistance in providing the Department access to their birth and death records for verification purposes. We plan to vigorously continue this effort.”
Look -- as far back as 2005, interagency data sharing has been pointed out as the big elephant in the room.Fast-forward to 2009 and an effective strategy on data sharing with 1) SSA, 2) State Registrars, 3) other federal agencies is still MIA.You think perhaps State need to send more than letters to get these folks attention?
Who has the authority to rope all these various fed and state agencies together and make them quit dragging their feet on this interagency process? I realized that interagency cooperation can be a slow process -- but c'mon, four years down and slowwhere to go? We can do better than this post 9/11, can't we?
You can read Mr. Ford’s full testimony here and Ms. Sprague’s here.
The GAO has released an update on their recent investigation on US passport vulnerabilities: Addressing Significant Vulnerabilities in the Department of State’s Passport Issuance Process. This report dated April 13, 2009 was sent to Jon Kyl, the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security and Committee on the Judiciary and to Senator Dianne Feinstein.Expect somebody from the Consular Bureau to be grilled at one committee or another on this subject. Brief excerpts from the GAO report below:
In the case of our most egregious application—in which we fraudulently obtained a passport using the SSN of a man who died in 1965—State officials said that the lack of an automated check against SSA death records has been a long-standing vulnerability of the passport adjudication process. In an attempt to provide automatic death record information for all cases reviewed during adjudication, Passport Services represented that it has recently purchased a subscription to the Death Master File which includes weekly updates of deaths recorded by SSA. Passport Services intends for the Death Master File check to supplement the other checks in the adjudication process and not replace the current returns from SSA.
State officials also told us that they took several actions in direct response to our undercover investigation, including the following:
State suspended the adjudication authority of the four passport specialists responsible for approving our fraudulent applications pending additional training. It is auditing all work completed by these specialists.
State suspended the authority to accept passport applications at the USPS facilities that accepted our applications pending additional antifraud training.
State revised performance standards for passport specialists to eliminate the production targets for 2009. In addition, State implemented a temporary requirement that supervisors review all adjudicated applications prior to approval. All other aspects of performance standards were left intact for quality and fraud prevention purposes.
State identified additional tools and systems that would help address vulnerabilities within the issuance process.
State officials added that Passport Services will be conducting a study and working with the union to develop new production targets. These targets will not be in place until 2010.
Footnote to this report indicates that between June 20, 2008, and December 22, 2008, a total of 71,982 applicants received passports without supplying their SSN.
The GAO elucidates on the SSA angle and adjudication:
“State officials told us that a combination of human error and a lack of access to information resulted in the failures identified by our undercover tests. According to State, passport specialists did not wait for the results of a required SSA database check before approving our fraudulent applications. In all four of our tests, State failed to identify the fraudulent birth certificates we used. State officials attributed these failures to a lack of access to state-level vital records data that would have allowed passport specialists to verify the authenticity of the birth certificates. State officials indicated they were exploring ways to access vital records and department of motor vehicle records nationwide to address the lack-of-access issues. Further, we note that State issues passports to some individuals who do not provide SSNs, meaning that State cannot rely on an SSN check to identify all fraudulent applications.”
The GAO report concludes:
"State officials have known about vulnerabilities in the passport issuance process for many years but have failed to effectively address these vulnerabilities. Although State has proposed reasonable oversight measures for passport acceptance facilities in response to our July 2007 recommendations, it is too early to determine whether these measures will be effective. Our most recent investigation reveals passport specialists also face challenges. State has indicated that it takes the results of this investigation seriously, and officials have said that they are taking agency wide actions. The fact that our undercover investigator obtained a genuine U.S. passport using the SSN of a man who died in 1965 is particularly troubling given that a simple check of SSA’s publicly available Death Master File would have disclosed the fraud."
The vulnerabilities of US passports are in no small part systemic. The 2005 GAO report has pointed out the weaknesses in State’s information sharing with other federal agencies.For example, State and SSA signed a memorandum in April 2004 that gave State access to SSA’s main database to help verify passport applicants’ identity but it did not include access to the SSA’s death records!
So the fault here is assigned to a combination of human error and lack of access to relevant information. And the adjudication authority of four employees were suspended, their previous approvals audited -- even if the systems in placed were partly to blame. I feel a tad sorry for the adjudicators. Sure, if they did not follow the required procedures, they should be accountable, but what if the procedures have holes in them? Isn’t that kind of like walking the police beat without a gun, and getting slapped with a suspension when a suspect beats you up and run away?
I could not understand either why the audit is limited to the four adjudicators. Is this not a systemic failure -- this and the fact that four years after the first GAO report was issued, this remains a "challenge" with no real resolution? How many adjudicators have done exactly as these four did with applications from people who submitted real docs for their fraudulent applications? Doesn't this incident indicate to passport adjudicators that your tooshie is on the line, more than what you might reasonably expect?
GAO-09-583R: Addressing Significant Vulnerabilities in the Department of State’s Passport Issuance Process (Washington, D.C.: April 13, 2009)
GAO-09-447:Department of State: Undercover Tests Reveal Significant Vulnerabilities in State’s Passport Issuance Process, (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 13, 2009).
GAO-07-1006:Border Security: Security of New Passports and Visas Enhanced, but More Needs to Be Done to Prevent Their Fraudulent Use (Washington, D.C.: July 31, 2007)
GAO-05-477: State Department: Improvements Needed to Strengthen U.S. Passport Fraud Detection Efforts, (Washington, D.C.: May 20, 2005)
Recent stabilization and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq have underlined the need for the United States to shift the burden of these operations away from the Defense Department and onto other government agencies better suited to the work, according to a study released last week by the RAND Corporation.
"The military isn't the best agency for reconstruction and stabilization missions, even though it can get personnel and resources to a location quickly," said Nora Bensahel, lead author of the study and senior political scientist with RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "Putting the military in charge of these tasks also sets a bad example because one of the key components of democratic theory is civilian control over the military," Bensahel said. "If these tasks are highly or completely militarized, it raises fundamental doubts as to whether it is, indeed, democracy that is promoted by U.S. assistance."
On Personnel Surge?
“Absent fundamental changes in organization and resources, the State Department and USAID will probably be more knowledgeable about stabilization and reconstruction issues than DoD but nowhere near as good at surging personnel in response to a crisis. Developing the capacity in civilian agencies to surge personnel and funding will need to be a key priority of senior U.S. leaders all the way up to the presidential level in order to spark changes in both capacity and organizational culture. The question is whether the State Department and USAID can develop and maintain the ability to surge personnel and funding in response to a crisis, or whether DoD will continue to be relied upon to undertake stabilization and reconstruction missions.”
The Lead Agency?
"If nation-building remains a foreign-policy priority for the United States but the majority of resources and capabilities for that priority are concentrated in DoD, that organization, which already has the military missions under its control, will become the lead agency for a major component of U.S. foreign policy. Such a development would weaken the role of the State Department, both at home and abroad. It would raise concerns about the weakening of civilian control over military policy and undermine U.S. diplomatic efforts around the world. In short, it would be a fundamental realignment of how the United States both sees itself and is seen globally."
The study recommends that the United States:
emphasize civilian, rather than military, capacity in stability and reconstruction missions
realign the roles of the National Security Council, State Department and United States Agency for International Development rather than create new bureaucracies
fund and implement the Civilian Stabilization Initiative
improve the ability to deploy police officers for both community policing and specialized tasks
improve crisis management for stabilization and reconstruction missions
ensure coherent guidance and funding for effectiveness and sustainability.
